Initially I used a fine smooth habotai silk, but it "shifted" when I stabilised it and after printing I had some crooked letters. When I tried the decorative hand stitching it was impossible. I then swopped to Silco - 55% silk, 45% cotton and that worked much better, although it felt more like cotton than silk. Okay for the white banners, but I tried dyeing it earthy colours and it looked like grubby dishcloths.
So, a trip to London, to Berwick Street, Soho.
I love Berwick Street. I took these photos of the antique cotton reels, buttons and sewing machine in one of the shops. There are always stage designers wafting around with wads of drawings for the theatre, and loads of truly fabulous fabric. I also learnt how to test silk. You burn a little and if it goes plasticky it's synthetic but if it cinders and smells like burnt hair, it's silk!
Here I found Dupion which made me swallow at the cost, but just yummy to work with.
The fabric is stabilised by spraying mountboard with removeable spray glue and pressing the fabric onto the board. It leaves the board sticky when removed but leaves no residue of glue on the fabric.
My best tip ever!
The board also helped me move the fabric around the painterly studio and keep it clean. Perhaps one of the more challenging aspects of screening 2 meters of fabric in 6 screenings.
I am such a Lascaux fan - their metallic paints are gorgeous, with a choice of golds, bronzes and silvers. With screen printing, extender is needed which makes the ink quite sloppy - another challenging aspect of keeping the blobs on the screen and not spilling over onto the fabric.
Getting there...and I'm omitting the frustrations and mess-ups...
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