I did a thing and CANNOT wait to show you guys!
Let's take a closer look:
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| Notice any similarities? |
Last year I took a printmaking class at Rodman Hall. We did monoprinting using Gelli plates, made printing blocks from styrofoam plates and sticky-back fun foam:
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| A My Favorite Murder themed tote bag I made for a Christmas exchange last year. |
...but most of our time was spent creating relief block prints out of lino. When deciding what to make prints of, it was pretty easy to decide I would carve an image of Sweet Dee's face into the lino. I mean how could I not?
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| SO. FRICKING. CUTE. |
My lovely instructor, Kristen, suggested at some point that I experiment with the fabric ink that we had in class, and LIGHTBULB! YES I WILL MAKE A DRESS WITH DEE'S ADORABLE FACE ON IT.
I used my trusty Simplicity 1873 altered scoop neck bodice and added a circle skirt (with pockets, duh!).
Since this is a bodice I've sewn up many times before it went relatively quickly (as quickly as avoiding sewing 12 darts can go for a procrastinator), and the skirt went quickly too. The longest part of the process, and the most avoided, was having to heat set all the cute little Dee faces with an iron so that they don't come out in the wash.
For the fabric, I used some quilting cotton that I picked up with the express purpose of this dress. Everything else in my stash already had a print or did not have enough yardage.
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| Look at how the back hangs!!!! SO puuuurrrrrtyyy. |
In terms of construction when making my own fabric print, I had to make some adjustments. The first thing I did differently was I precut all the bodice and skirt pieces before printing on them. This allowed me to choose print placement (a.k.a. avoiding dogface boobs). In fact, since I knew I was going to put in pockets, I sewed the pockets and side seams, and even pressed the centre back skirt seam under so I could get perfect pattern matching just by lining everything up and having the stamp lay across both pieces. Doing this did result in a few lines where the bulk of the seams interrupted the print, but I preferred this to farting around with the stamp and trying to match it all after the fact. I only wish I had thought to do the same for the back bodice pieces as well.
I printed using Speedball screen printing ink, hence why each little Dee is inconsistent. For my next fabric, which I've already printed, I used their block fabric ink and I got a much nicer and more consistent print.
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| My handmade linocut. |
I used horsehair braid again for the skirt hem, but instead of machine hemming it with the blind hem stitch like I usually do, I hand-sewed the hem. Sometimes you need to add those little touches to special pieces like this.
I used my stash Rayon Bemberg for the lining. Yup, that's the same stuff that I picked up like three years ago when my local Fabricland closed.
Overall I can't say much more than I LOVE THIS DRESS. I mean, we all knew I was a crazy dog mom, but like I've recently said, taking things to the next level makes me beyond happy. I have already been playing around with more printmaking and fabric and can't wait to see what I can do next!
Let's not forget our tradition of dumb faces:
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| Had to crop Trev's finger out of this one 😂 |
And one for Dee with her eyes closed:
So tell me: would you make your own fabric? What would you put on it? I need all the ideas!
<Love it>
PS. LOOK AT THIS DOODLE A STUDENT DID ON THEIR NOTE THE FIRST TIME I WORE THIS TO WORK 😍... doesn't it just make you want to squeal with happiness?! Oh yeah, and it's like maybe an inch and a half big so it's doubly cute.😍😍
