Or was it?

Last fall, I took a printmaking class through CCDE at my very own university and became intrigued by the art of screen printing. Soon after, I picked up an amazing book called Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin from the public library and after renewing it a number of times, finally decided to spring for the $25 to own the thing.

I've tried the stencil method of screen printing (which you can read about in my post here), but am still a bit daunted by the prospect of photo emulsion screen printing. A happy medium (no pun intended!) is the screen filler method, which I decided to try out recently.

The project: Printed tea towels
Supplies: Purchased tea towels from IKEA, screen drawing fluid, screen filler, fabric screen printing ink, a silk screening frame, plus all the basic supplies for screen printing (squeegee, scraper, plastic spoons, patience, and time!)

My idea was to make a tea towel set; one with an imprint of "easy as pie" and the other with an imprint saying "piece of cake". I didn't draw the images myself, rather I just found images I liked online and picked a font that I thought would look good on tea towels. I printed them out and taped the first pattern to the back of the screen to trace.


Once traced onto the screen, I used a fine paintbrush and screen drawing fluid to paint the image onto the back of the screen.


Once the screen drawing fluid was dry, I went over the entire image with screen filler. Then I let that dry overnight.

Once the screen filler is completely dry, I ran the screen underwater and watched the drawing fluid dissolve and voila! You have your image prepared.


Then the fun part begins: mixing your ink, doing the final prep on the screen, setting up your workspace and doing a few test prints. The "easy as pie" towels turned out great.


A few days later, I started working on the cake towels. I must have had beginners' luck on the first batch, because the second set turned out to be a lot more difficult and after a number of test prints, the image wasn't coming out clearly. I decided to wash the screen after attempt number one and try again later.


Unfortunately, the second attempt was no "piece of cake" either, and I ended up having to scrap the idea of a producing set of tea towels.

But I love the ink colour!

Luckily, I'm left with enough good pie towels to give one to each of my faithful blog readers (you know who you are!)

Merry Christmas!

Did you love the movie "How to Make an American Quilt"?

I sure did. I loved the way that the construction of a wedding quilt for the reluctant Wynona Ryder revealed the life stories of her grandmother's quilting circle. You just think they're a bunch of old ladies who like quilts, but you find out that some of them were pretty wild in their heydey.

Making a quilt seems painstaking, but the results are beautiful. I've had it on my bucket list for some time. I figure if I want to be good at it by the time I'm an old lady, I had better start now!

To be clear, it's not an "old lady hobby" anymore. The quilting class instructor tells me that it's usually half younger and half older women these days (but no men, I gather). And fabric choice (of course) can influence the style of a quilt, making it "act its age."

I love the fabrics I chose:

Bicycles, polka dots and flowers - love, love love them!

I'm heading into my fifth week of beginner quilting, and things are really starting to come together. We're almost done making our squares and supposedly by next week, we'll be putting the top together. I say "supposedly" because I'm always skeptical about beginner classes actually delivering on what they promise.

Here's a recap.

Week Two:

Rail fence block

Nine patch block

 Week Three:

Friendship star block

Eccentric star block

Double X block

Shoo fly block

Aren't these names great?

Week Four:

Jacob's ladder block

Double nine patch variation (so fun!)

I've got a wee bit of homework to do, finishing up a last block before we sew the final two in class. This will be called a sampler quilt because we sample a number of different styles.

I will call it my living room quilt for snuggling and watching movies during Christmas holidays!

First couple hours in Paris: the rain cleared up and it was a beautiful day along the Seine.

The first of many "wine breaks"

At the Louvre

The Arc de Triomphe: Way bigger than I expected it to be.

With Matt's aunt and uncle in their Paris "appartement"

La Tour Eiffel

Beautiful Paris

Aix-en-Provence: All the kids were drinking this creme de menthe concoction, so Matt also decided to try it. He didn't order a second one.

Beautiful architecture and art in Aix (behind us, we're not it)

Walking (okay, posing) along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France

Parc de la Chateau in Nice

Renting beach chairs and a parasol in Nice was a genius idea: 28 degree air and 25 degrees in the ocean!

Breathtaking Manarola, part of the Cinque Terre on the Italian coast

Riomaggiore, another one of the five towns

An almost vertical street in Manarola

Our sailboat caption, Faust, and his first mate

Steak Florentine: 2.2 pounds of regret

"Due cappuccini" at a real Italian coffee bar. It was delicious.

Mile-high gelato

The gorgeous simplicity of Italian food: just add lots of cheese!

Learning anatomy in Florence. This is the fake statue of David, I know, but by this point, we were tired of line-ups.

I drank the kool-aid.

Looking out over Florence from the Campanille di Giotto

Tuscany takes your breath away

Yep, we could drink that.

Siena's seashell-shaped piazza. I'm hiding somewhere in it if you look really closely!

At the Capannelle winery in Tuscany.

Looking out the front doors of our B & B in Tuscany

Borgo Argenina was as quaint and rustic as Tuscany in the movies

The proprietor, Elena, picking fresh figs for us to try (they were wonderful)

Making an authentic Italian feast with other guests at the B & B

The Spanish Steps in Rome

The Trevi Fountain - amazing.

Circus Maximus, where ancient chariot races were held. That day, people were eating their lunch there instead.

Strip of pizza for ya?

The Colosseum

Tunnels underneath the floor of the Colosseum

Piazza Navona

The Vatican's nutella station

In St. Peter's Square

Entering St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican

Looking back over the crowds in St. Peter's Square

Inside the Basilica

The colourful Swiss Guard

And I'll finish with the Holy Triduum of Italy:

Pasta!

Pizza!

and Peroni (beer)!

To tie it back to Prairie Sown, I took great artistic inspiration from this adventure; from the romance of Paris to the colourful towns in the Cinque Terre. I don't know where and when these images will turn up in my handmade goodness, but rest assured, they will!