XoXo

For Valentine's Day I gave Dave a few odds and ends--some books, a VHS copy of The Year Punk Broke (I don't know why it's not available on DVD!), and a tin of Jacques Torres hot chocolate. I made the valentine with a blank postcard and some wood blocks (those are really getting a lot of traction lately--see the T-shirt project), with a paper heart garland to decorate the wrapping.

Dave gave me some chocolates and this necklace I had wanted from Les Morceaux. He also brought carrot cake from Lloyd's and we enjoyed the evening re-watching Freaks and Geeks.

Wood block T-shirt

I really like the look of old wooden letterpress type, and have picked up a few here and there at flea markets and the like, mostly for decorative purposes. But the great thing about them is that you can use them to make things as well, even if you don't have a press.

I wanted to spruce up this t-shirt so I laid it out on the floor with a few pieces of paper in between, just in case ink seeped through (it didn't), and played around with the arrangement of the letters until I arrived at one that I liked.

I applied some ink to the back with a foam brush (I used Jacquard textile paint but you could use any screenprinting ink). You don't really need too much, just a thin layer. Also don't mind the weird glare on the 5.

And then I pressed them into the fabric by hand, one at a time. I like the varying degrees of texture, how some came out lighter than others.

Finally, after it dried I ironed on the back of the print for about 30 seconds to heat set it. And that's it. The bulk of the project probably took about 5 minutes.

Losing my Gocco virginity

Over the weekend I completed a few more scrap paper notebooks. But more importantly, I used my new Print Gocco for the first time to decorate them. I've been a bit of a shut-in lately because of the cold and am already starting to wish the warmer weather would come back so I can get out and start exploring again. Thus, I decided to go for a travel theme, and printed out part of an old Texas roadmap.

Overall the process was pretty easy, though it did take me quite a few tries before getting a decent print. At first I was pushing down too hard (see the print on the right)--turns out you barely have to tap it down to get the right amount of definition. At least in my experience. I think I generally picked a trickier image than I should have--there's way too much detail in there, plus I had a hard time getting the whole image to print. Although I do kind of like how there are spots missing where there wasn't enough ink on the screen--which I guess is technically a mistake and might not work for other images.

While the general process of making screens and prints with the Gocco is very simple and quick, I was a little disappointed to learn how fast you burn through the supplies. The bulbs can only be used once--after making one screen they go into the trash. The screens can be reused to make additional prints, but only to a point since the frames are made of paper and don't last too long. And unlike regular screens you can't erase them to create a new image. To make matters worse, because the product has been discontinued, the replacement supplies, while easy enough to find online, are rather expensive.

Someone needs to start manufacturing new supplies that can be used on the existing machines. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already! But for now I'll just have to be very careful and strategic with what I already have.

DIY striped shirt

One of the best things about my job is that they give you the whole week off between Christmas and New Year's. With the blizzard and general coldness I wasn't really in the mood to go outside so I worked on a whole lot of projects.

I'd been planning on trying this striped shirt project, using painter's tape and fabric paint, but then I realized that I didn't have any tape. I was so set on making something that I turned to the freezer paper, which yielded something even better.

I cut out strips of the paper, purposely leaving ragged edges and uneven lines, and placed them on the shirt, right up to the collar.

After ironing the strips on, I cut out a few triangles and played around a bit with where I wanted to put them before ironing them on as well.

Then I applied several coats of fabric paint using a foam brush. I purposely left the ends a bit rough.

I had such a hard time waiting for it to dry before peeling up the paper. Here's a little more info about making freezer paper stencils.

New pillow design

After how pleased I was with the USA map pillow I decided to try out a variation on the idea. Because as much as I love road trips, I like boat rides...well, maybe not quite as much but they're pretty fun too.

The lino-cut of a sailboat.

A successful test print on paper (this gives me an idea for a card too now...).

I was originally planning on just having one print but the first one was a little light (guess I should do a tester on a scrap fabric too) so I ended up printing several boats.

A close-up--not bad. I think this method will always yield a textured-looking line as opposed to a smooth line.

And the rest of the design--I embroidered the imagined routes that the boats have taken (the fourth one at the top right is that of a boat that you can't see, which I did because that section was looking a little bit empty).

Stay tuned for the final product.

First printing project, part 4

And now for the final stages.

I turned it inside out and pinned two of the sides together.

After sewing the pinned sides I turned it right side out. (Note to self: do not iron over red embroidery thread if you do not want red streaks on your fabric.)

I stuffed the open side with batting and polyfil.

Then pinned and sewed the opening closed.

Now it's a rather stylish (if I may say so) travel pillow.

First printing project, part 3

The next phase of this project was a bit delayed because I couldn't find any sewing needles (the craft room needed a serious cleaning, which it has received). I was finally able to proceed over the weekend, which entailed sewing various road trip routes inside the outlines of the U.S. I got the idea after my Arizona road trip, when I thought to just do the states of Nevada and Arizona. Then I thought, why not do the whole country, which opened it up to many more possibilities, of crazy imagined routes that no one in their right mind would try, to documenting road trips from literature and film.

From left to right: Salt Lake City, UT, to Fargo, ND, to Louisville, KY, to Portland, ME; Los Angeles, CA, to Detroit, MI, to Mobile, AL; New York, NY, to Austin, TX

From left to right: Butte, MT, to Chicago, IL, to Washington, DC*; New York, NY, to San Francisco, CA; Bisbee, AZ, to Tulsa, OK, to Savannah, GA

I've only actually driven one of these routes: New York to Austin (on the right here). The rest of them were chosen for either purely aesthetic value, routes I'd like to try, or literary reference. I did type all of them into Google maps in an attempt to stitch the actual route that would be taken, though all of them are rough estimates, since it's kind of difficult to tell where anything is without the outlines of states in the design. I think I did a fairly good job though.

*This is the route that T.S. Spivet traveled in The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, which I read recently. It might not be totally accurate, as I didn't check back to see how the rails traveled from Butte to Chicago, but you get the gist.

First printing project, part 2

I realized that while I have a brayer, I don't really have a good surface for rolling out the ink. In class there were tables with glass taped down to them. Perhaps if I bought a small piece of plexiglass I could recreate that setup. But for now I decided to brush fabric paint onto the block with a foam brush. After testing it on a scrap of paper, I decided I was ready to move onto some fabric.

I used this baren to push down on the linoleum to get an even print.

The first one came out a bit too light, so over the next few I tried adding more ink, putting more weight on the baren, and holding it down longer.

Here are the last two prints. While not totally perfect, there is marked improvement--and I don't think this method will ever yield perfectly smooth lines, as any fabric has a texture.

Here's the final piece. While it has its imperfections, I nonetheless have some (somewhat) grand plans for it.

First printing project, part 1

I guess the title of this post is a little misleading--it's not my very first printing project ever, just the first one in about five years. I took several printmaking classes in college and loved it. I can't really explain why it's taken me this long to try it again, but so it goes.

I already had all of the materials I needed from taking the classes (and a few purchases made right after graduation with the intent of doing more of it), which was quite helpful in motivating me to try it again.

I printed out an image of the outline of the United States (stay tuned for the idea behind this image), traced it with charcoal, and then transferred it to the linoleum by rubbing it with a bone folder.

I found that the techniques needed to carve the block came back to me pretty naturally, though I will admit that it's not an extremely detailed image (thus a good start).

Not bad for my first try in more than five years. We'll see how the actual printing goes.

Grandma crafts

Lately I've been experimenting a bit with using paper doilies as stencils. I haven't exactly perfected the art yet but I've been pleased with the preliminary results and thought I'd share.

I'm pretty excited about this (although not as much about the unflattering picture). That's not white ink, it's bleach. I tested out an old black T-shirt, painting bleach over the doily with a cheap paint brush.


It's a little sloppy (I have to make sure all of the holes are punched out of the doily before starting) but it worked better than expected.

I also tried out printing with fabric ink, and the resulting image is a bit crisper than the bleach, though it could still use a bit of perfecting. In the future I'll cut out a circle slightly larger than the doily so the edges are nice and clean.

I went ahead and cut out a long rectangle of gray T-shirt fabric to make a lightweight spring scarf, and tried different things as I went along--cutting shapes out of the doily, only printing part of the doily, etc.

Looks pretty good, I think. (Yes, I'm all doilied out, in my scarf and T-shirt.)