Silkscreen & Scribble the inner workings of a hand printed textile studio

Lots of new things in the works but nothing finished and ready to share yet I’m afraid. This week’s been an interesting mix of working on new things - printing the fuchsia samples, finishing another new cushion design (more on that soon) and working on designs for a rather exciting project which I can’t wait to be able to write about!

However, the realities of running a business means that a fair amount of time is also devoted to printing and making existing designs for orders (not to mention sales, marketing, admin and lots of other important tasks) so I’ve also been printing up some bluebird baby t-shirts and making some purses.

Whilst it would be nice to spend my days making one of kind items there is something very pleasing about lots of little baby t-shirts lined up drying on the print table!

Of course one of the little perks of batch production are the offcuts…

I have a nice little pile of offcuts growing and seeing them together like this I think some one of a kind patchwork cushions may just have to be made soon.

Posted: March 20th, 2010 in hand-printing, inside the studio, making things.
Comments: 1

No silly, I’m not talking actual ladies dancing but instead lovely fuchsia flowers with their long leggy stamens and flouncy petticoat petals. Some designs just seem to spring out of my head fully formed and getting them onto paper/computer is super easy, but sometimes (like this) they need gently coaxed out and manipulated to get the right shape, composition etc.

I’m excited to finally get this exposed onto a screen since it’s taken a lot of tweaking to get to this stage. Now comes the fun part of choosing what colour to print!

For added realism I photographed the plain back of one of my cushions so that I can use it to mock up designs on Photoshop to see them on the cushion and decide on colours. I’m liking the teal but also fuchsia pink (very appropriate), violet, red, spring green, burnt orange… I could go on. So it’s time to go and make some decisions and print up some samples, make the cushions, photograph etc and then eventually get them into the shop.

Posted: March 10th, 2010 in design, hand-printing.
Comments: 1

My brother lives in the States so we don’t see him very often so it was great when he came over to see us a couple of weeks ago and it was his birthday while he was here so what better excuse to make him an extra special gift. He’s a really keen cook so an apron seemed the perfect answer but I wasn’t sure if he would like my regular aprons and like me he is a big fan of black so I decided to print some nice black cotton drill fabric with white knives and forks. I was hoping to be able to show it off being worn but my brother managed to squirrel the apron away in his suitcase and avoided being photographed wearing it, so here is my “Betty” wearing it.

For the moment at least this is one of a kind but I suspect it may not stay that way for long as I have already had some not so subtle hints from other family and friends that they would like one too!

Posted: November 11th, 2008 in commissions & specials, hand-printing.
Comments: 2

As a small business it’s always interesting to be able to do special commissions for customers. I had been thinking about trying out printing a couple of my designs in red ink on natural linen but I hadn’t got round to printing up some samples yet. Then one of my neighbours came to visit the studio with her sister who was in Orkney on holiday and she asked me to print a couple of cushions for her home.

I’m really pleased with the way this design looks in red and I think I may have to print some more of these for the shop sometime soon. The other cushion is in my pebbles design - I like it in red too but not quite as much I can’t decide whether to make more or not?

What do think red pebbles or no red pebbles?

Posted: September 20th, 2008 in design, hand-printing, inside the studio.
Comments: 7

I did an interesting commission last year for the Pier Arts Centre, which is a local gallery. It’s an amazing place to have on your doorstep and they have an impressive collection of work from artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicolson.

The centre is really part of the community and have a great program of educational events and involvement with local schools and they asked me to produce some floor cushions for kids to use as they take part in various activities around the galleries such as drawing and storytelling sessions.

Although it was the end of last year that I made them I’ve only recently received these photos and it’s great to see them in action.

Posted: September 6th, 2008 in art, design, hand-printing, inside the studio.
Comments: 2

So I guess I should fill in a few of the details. I live in Orkney which is a tiny group of islands off the north of Scotland and from here I run a studio designing and making a range of hand-printed textiles. I’ve got lots of exciting changes planned for the business over the next few months and hope you’ll come along for the ride.

One of my new projects has been setting up a wee studio shop in my workshop and the printed leaves fabric on the print table has become a lovely curtain to tidy up the sink area in the workshop. Unfortunately the sink is at the door and although the inks I use are all non-toxic and water based, I wouldn’t want anyone to spoil their clothes by getting ink on them.

Until the end of September my studio at the Old Academy (in the town of Stromness) will be open Wednesday and Friday afternoons 2.30-5pm. I’m not sure how often I’ll open in the winter, it does get pretty quiet around here once the weather becomes more wintery.

Posted: September 3rd, 2008 in hand-printing, inside the studio, it's all me, me, me.
Comments: 2