Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Today I decided that I'd try printing on fabric with my gocco. It went well, I think! Especially considering that I used the screen and ink intended for paper, not fabric. It was interesting to see my Floral Fancy print on different backgrounds.

I think I'm going to make a gocco print for Jesse's Swatch Swap. But since I haven't quite decided how it's going to look, I wasn't going to waste bulbs just for the sake of satisfying my curiosity as to what it would be like to actually print on fabric.

Now I'm just curious how the paper ink is going to dry. I wonder if it will be water proof if I heat set it?Looking at those swatches up there I'm getting an itch to make a load of swatches with Floral Fancy and making a quilt.

I really like this one, on Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy. Probably one of the prettiest fabrics ever made!

And on yellow gingham. I actually have a confession to make; I used to be not terribly keen on yellow, but now I seem to spot it everywhere and guess what, I'm not hating it!

Ahh, this light blue and white floral one. I really like it. And it's the proof of a lesson I learned today. It may be that you should keep your inked gocco screens in a ziploc bag in the fridge (can't remember where I read this piece of advice), but that won't keep it use fresh forever. The ink will eventually start to dry up and clog the screen. Us the darn thing. Don't just let it sit there. This will also cut down on the questions about the strange bag with paint that's sitting in the fridge!

However, the REAL value of this lesson is that, although the initial print (after a couple of months of sitting idle) is pretty much non existent, all is NOT lost. With a gentle hand and a piece of card you can scrape off the ink and then reapply some fresh ink. You may have lost a bit of ink, but the screen should still be working!

Labels: fabric, gocco