Sunday, October 3, 2021

ECO PRINTING WITH HEAT PRESS

Wow.....a day of inspiration and guidance.  

Several of us from the Mt. Art Quilt Group have been gathering (now monthly....so much to do, so little time) to share our interests.  Both Judy and Kathie have invested in heat presses, used to do eco printing on both paper and cloth.  Here's just some of Kathie's wall of inspiration!
Her studio space is beyond something I dream about.  The area is so ample she has separate spaces for various tasks, including this area for wet work.
Here's one of the three sewing nooks.
And another featuring a vintage singer machine.
Organized bins for fabrics/books/magazines.....
Several large tables to spread out with projects.  This work area  was covered in preparation for layering the teflon/wet felt/prepared foliage design (on paper or fabric)/covered by more wet felt and teflon.  Various solutions of mordants are handy to soak leaves to achieve different apperances.  One surprising mordan is vodka...yes, ordinary drinking vodka....obviously the cheap kind.
Her large heat press has it's own station....protected by plastic and rolled towels to keep the excess moisture at bay.
A design has been arranged on a silk scarve which is getting a second go at the heat press.  Not all foliage and mordants achieve good prints, so reprocessing is sometimes needed.

Here's a beauty....printed on natural color silk noil.
A drying rack on a covered deck allows the work to dry as we work on additional pieces.  The colored fabrics on the right side of the photo were my attempts at printing on wool.  I knew that was going to be iffy and except for a few leaves that printed well....most areas were left with only dull smudges.  A little disappointing but NOT a surprise.....good to get approach out of my system.
As luck would have it.....Jane Dunnewold's newest book about eco printing with a heat press arrived in the mail at our hostesses home.  We were thrilled that one of Kathie's pieces is featured in the Gallery of Inspiration.  It's super stunning in person....yeah Kathie....congratulations!!!!!


6 comments:

Kathy said...

You know that I am exploring this technique vicariously through you, don't you? Beautiful results--and something to learn even on those 'failures.' I don't want to do it, though, so please keep on trying it for me!!! It's fascinating!

Nancy said...

This is serious business, and she has a serious studio to address it. A lot of heat printing will be forthcoming. But what a huge timesaver the heat press is!

Darlene S said...

Wow, what fun and creativity. I absolutely love it.

Robbie said...

WOW...what a wonderful studio area. The prints I see are wonderful!!!! What fun!!

Nan said...

Totally amazing and inspiring! I have tried many with the steaming, jealous of your set up and your results!! Lucky all of you, and how fun!! Experimenting is always just such fun!!!

The Inside Stori said...

I want to make it clear.......the dream studio featured here is not mine....but rather my friend Kathie's awesome set up. She generously shared it and her new found knowledge of eco printing using a heat press with several pals that get together regularly to experiement with fiber techniques. I have used the steam/simmer/rolled & stacked methods quite alot and was happy with the results. The heat press acheives this in 4 mins. instead of nearly an hour!