Life As I See It

Today would be the Day

Today would be the Day

It's been raining all day and I was told for most of the night as well. I wouldn't know anything about night time precipitation because not much wakes me up. A mouse sneezing would wake up Derek but for me it would have to be an elephant.

I digress, Today would be the day for silk screening my fabric because of all the humidity in the air. I have large silk screens which inevitably get a lot of ink on them and take longer to actually pull the ink across the screen. I use an eco-friendly, water based ink which on hot days dries quickly. When the ink dries in the screen it blocks the wet ink from being pushed through to make the image on the fabric. At Art School where I learned silk screening we had a very long table and were able to screen yardage. That meant that I would lay out yards of fabric on the long table and move the screen down the table until I had covered the whole piece of fabric with my design. At home I don't have the luxury of room for a large table. I cut out my pattern pieces and screen them individually. This is why it takes ideally 3 people to screen my designs. One to actually screen, one to place the fabric in the correct spot under the screen and one to hang up the fabric to dry. Most large print shops have a special oven with a conveyor belt to heat set the ink. I don't have this. I place one piece of fabric at a time in a clean roasting pan in the kitchen oven. 

silk screen

silk screen studio TraceyAnneMartin

silk screen studio TraceyAnneMartin

silk screen studio TraceyAnneMartin

silk screen studio TraceyAnneMartin

Another reason why today, a rainy day would be good for screening is because who likes to work in the garden in the rain? Or who likes to walk the dog in the rain? Or who likes to do anything besides curl up and read a book while it's raining. Those that are sitting reading are easy prey as helpers because they are not moving around avoiding you. They stay in one place so that by the fourth time of asking for help they are more likely to give in.