starry

For the handprinted fabric swap I wanted to use this technique that I saw originally on the Home Sweet blog and through some posts of Jesse's. It involves cutting shapes from sticky foam sheets and attaching them to perspex sheets to block print. The perspex enables you to see through to the fabric for accurate alignment when you move the block. And the sheets give a lovely flat surface for printing, which amazingly stands out from the background material even though its only millimetres thick.

I've cut some shapes out before but not got around to printing. Its quite hard to cut them smoothly with scissors and I'm not adept with a blade. In the back of my mind I've been imagining designs and then the other day this quilt of Sarah's really jumped out at me. I love this graphic star. Obsessed as I am with pattern I straight away started wondering how it would repeat and went into Illustrator to play around. Five minutes later I had the repeat and knew I wanted to print it with the bonus that I knew it would be simple to cut out.

I'll do a mini tutorial on my process next week when I get time but its very easy to print this way once you have the materials. It was fun to be block printing again and I love the result. I've got the panels hanging in my room and I can't stop looking at them. I love the optical illusion. One is printed linen/cotton and the other cotton drill. Miss A has asked for a bag in this fabric so I'll be printing more, I think I might want some for myself too. I want to try white on linen, and maybe red. I would have done it the other day but I crashed my poor computer with one click and had to erase (sharp indrawn breath) and reload all my data (but only after I backed it up twice)! Luckily I could still access the hard drive. Though it was a relief to think I'd done a backup a couple of weeks back. I'm usually a little slack...

Did you manage to take advantage of Spoonflower's free postage day yesterday. I really had to hustle to get my computer back on line, edit my patterns and in between attend an assembly and a music night! Luckily the offer was open till midnight! Can't wait to get my fabrics! I've ordered heaps and some new designs. The lego bricks have gone off!

Happy weekend to all. We're planning a long lunch with friends here tomorrow, my favourite lemon cake is made and in the fridge, it always tastes better the next day!