Printing - Block Printing on Fabric
Learn to design and carve your own stamp and use it to print onto cloth
Teacher: Leslie Keating
Description: This class will cover the basics of creating a design suitable for block printing, how to transfer a design onto the carving block, how to carve with a lino cutter set, what paints and ink are suitable for stamping on fabric and what base cloths work best. There will be time allotted to work on a simple design, participants will then work at carving their stamps and can have a play with stamping using supplied inks and cloth.
Materials: Ink and cloth will be provided but participants will be required to purchase a kit for around $20 which would include a Speedball lino cutter (comes with 6 blades) and a carving block (large enough to get a few stamps out of or one big design). Participants are also welcome to bring their own fabric to stamp on.
Takeaway: This is a technique focused class but you will go home with a printed fat quarter of your own design plus a work sheet with tips and listing the brands of ink and types of cloth recommended.
Level: Beginner
Workshop Length: Half Day
So I wrote last week a post asking “Is my making fast fashion?”. And then I did a video on Instagram discussing similar topics in a slightly different way. And as always, you lovely humans have helped me clarify some of my thinking with your thoughtful, clever commentary.
And while I think there is so much more to discuss, here are four key possibly-more-meta ideas that have come up for me out of those conversations.
In using the quote last week that suggested that there was no single answer, and suggesting that this was freeing, I really did mean that we should sit in the grey. Not that the lack of “an” answer to this question should mean we get to ignore the question but rather that the lack of “an” answer means that we need to keep asking bigger more beautiful questions. And keep asking them.
Is my making fast fashion?
Am I living my values or merely thinking them?
And how can I make those two things a little more aligned in this moment?
These are my big beautiful questions.
Yours might be different.
And importantly this leads to point 2.