Wintersession 2013

WOW does time go by fast when you're really busy! I have to say, these past five weeks may have been the busiest I've ever been...ever. Between a demanding course, an internship, and rehearsal for a musical, I'm not sure if I'm even breathing right now...somebody should come check my pulse.

I had the awesome opportunity to take a fabric silkscreen course this wintersession, and it was super challenging but also rewarding. Learning a new skill always involves a lot of frustration, especially when that skill is nothing like you've ever done before! In the five weeks, I completed two repeating patterns, and learned a whole lot about how to dye fabric.

The first fabric is based on a column I found in the RISD museum from Hadrian's Villa. Here is the pattern repeated, and snippets of the three printed fabrics:

Repeated pattern, birdies and branches! Leaves printed in india ink from real ivy.

Dyed yellow muslin, printed in orange.

Dyed uneven purple muslin, printed in dark purple.

Pink and orange rainbow roll, printed in turquoise.

 My second design went much smoother, since I finally mastered putting on emulsion (it only took me three tries the first time, shhh!) I wanted to design a textile that would be fun for a child, and I immediately went to glow-in-the-dark. Remember those fun sticky stars? Every awesome kid had them. I chose to create a pattern from a constellation map as a more elegant approach to that idea. And I printed in GLOW IN THE DARK INK oh yeahh! So fun! I can't seem to get a good photo of it glowing but, trust me, it glows. I experimented a lot with discharging and table dying to get that cosmic, celestially dyed fabric.

Repeated pattern.

Dyed baby blue muslin, printed in navy blue.

Dyed baby blue, discharged and table dyed muslin, printed in glow-in-the-dark.

Both fabrics next to each other.

All four fabrics!

I think these processes were also so difficult because of the size of the fabrics and screens - all the fabrics are 45" by 3 yards, and the screens are like 25" x 45" as well. And there is so much preparation that goes into silkscreen - getting ready to print a screen is 95% of the work, and printing only takes about 5 minutes! But in the end, I'm really proud to have these finished products. As you may or may not know, my mom recently started up an Etsy business, called The Quilting Bee. She sews baby and lap quilts and other fun things! Like pillows! It's my hope that she can turn these into something even cooler. (So if you feel so inclined, keep an eye on her Etsy page, or check back here because I'll probably definitely post about anything these are made into.)

So in addition to this course, I have also been interning at Ladyfingers Letterpress, a letterpress printing studio in Pawtucket, and rehearsing for a RISD production of Cabaret that's being performed in March - I'll post more about that when it gets closer.


For now, I am going to eat one of the fresh chocolate chip cookies I just baked and try to breathe a little. Until spring semester starts next week...!