Experiments in stamping and dyeing

A few weeks ago Create in Stitch  offered for sale a set of William Morris stamps and a book of postcards to colour. I bought both with a view to experimenting with stamping on fabric. At the time of writing, the stamp sets have sold out.

This week I found time to have a go.  I dug out cotton bags I bought from Spotlight a while ago for just such a purpose. I have  several bright colours, but chose the ecru one. To provide a firm surface without impacting both sides of the bag I inserted a blocking tile inside. 

To begin the process, I used my Inktense pencils to sketch a large tree on one side of the bag. One side of the tile has no ridges, so becomes the working side. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the tree. The Inktense pencils are fixed by water, so after drawing the tree I soaked the bag and hung it out to dry. It dried much paler than I had hoped, but as I was going to stamp over it I accepted that.

The stamps come with ink pads in four colours. I began trying to create a scene, but soon gave up and simply stamped wherever I found a space. The result was OK, but not exciting enough for me to do the same on the other side.

The stamps I liked best were the tiny birds. As I was stamping, I recalled songs I knew about birds. That led me to use the pencils to draw a bird on the other side.

Our State emblem is the Piping Shrike, a Magpie, and they are evident at the moment. 

I found a photo and had a go at freehand drawing one on the bag. The challenge was adding the white on the ecru background, but I rather enjoyed the drawing exercise. Of course, I added a bit of advice, prompted partly  by the time of year.

The pencils are fixed on fabric by wetting. I used water to wet the pencils as I drew. The colour gradually spreads. I like it better before it spread, but no matter.

To make sure it was set, I ironed, washed, rinsed it in vinegar, hung it out to dry, then ironed it again. It's a pretty messy spread, but I think this is how the pencils are intended to work.

The stamps survived the process surprisingly well. You can even just see the outline of the tree underneath. The text side would have benefitted from such an underlying layer.

The bag came with a label attached by a self-fabric band, I assume for folding. I will catch it with a couple of stitches to the bottom of the bag, so it can be folded thus to slip in a pocket or bag. 

This an experiment rather than an artistic offering, but maybe someone will be cheered  by it, and use it for everyday shopping. It will,  I think, survive quite a few washes.

I've learnt I can draw a magpie, the stamps work on fabric but are a bit small for a bag, I can't control the bleeding of Inktense pencils and Inktense red is very intense!