Printing Chickens

 I recently found this chicken wood-block at a local store and just couldn't resist, because, chickens!  I got out the Dr. p.h. Martin's ink and dry ink stamping pad that I like to use for stamping and some nice tight pima cotton and tried it.  Didn't work too well, as you can see below on the left.
The stamp isn't very even on the stamping surface, so I put a layer of quilt batting underneath to give more to press into and make all of the stamp surface come into contact with the fabric.  I also used my trusty brayer to get the ink onto the stamp because the stamp pad didn't work too well either.

 It did much better printing with the quilt batting underneath.

 And the third print?

Hmmm, still pretty spotty.  The ink was gathering in these deep cut out parts in the design.  I think I'll either thicken the ink, or use fabric paint next time in hopes that it will just stick on the stamping surface.
Not giving up, I need more chickens...

Hand-Printed by Moi

I just finished up participating in a hand-printed fabric swap, hostessed with grand aplomb and dexterity by Bitter Betty. Luckily for me, she was waiting on some other folks besides my late-ass self, and she also lives nearby! Thanks BB!

So I was able to sneak in under the finish line with these woodblock prints on some of my recently finished hand-dyed cotton:




Woodblock printing is harder than rubber stamping on fabric! I obviously need to practice, or change my technique because it was mucho harder than I thought it would be to get a consistent printed image.

I used a fabric printing ink that I bought from Dharma Trading, purple and green were the two colors. It isn't really labeled, but I think it is made by Ranger.

The woodblocks are from two sources, a store called Treasure (who are usually there vending at PIQF) and of all places: Lillian Vernon! The teeny Ganesha, Sacred Feet with Eyes (it must be called something specific) are from Treasure. The floral-ish ones from L.V. I need to figure out how to do this, because it was really fun, I mostly liked how my fabrics turned out, and I have some other woodblocks/batik stamps that are larger that I want to use!

Now to go peek in my package at the goodies I received!