Adventures in Fabric Printing

don't worry, swap partners, not the final run!

I might be in a bit over my head.  I was all gung ho when I signed up for the Handprinted Fabric Swap, even though I had not carved a block of linoleum since a high school art project.  All those tutorials looked so easy.  I ordered a Speedyball Lino-Cutter and some pink Speedy-Carve blocks.  Then I put them away.  Yesterday I got this lovely bundle in the mail:

It's from my friend Becky, who blogs at Belle + Bee, and is my swap partner in the Handprinted Fabric Swap.  She's also my sorority sister from our UNC Chapel Hill days!  Two beautiful fat quarters!  Time to get into gear.  So last night I got out my tear sheets for some ideas and began drawing.

I finally settled on this dahlia-esque circular pattern and made a stamp.  Right back to high school the carving was so enjoyable and easy.  Later I decided to add a leaf stamp.

The problems came in the printing.  I quickly realized the importance of having a nice, even, flat layer of paint to dip it in.  Even still, I had major blobs.

I played around some more and eventually got the hang of it but I was still not getting great results.   I emailed with Becky and she told me she had ordered fabric ink pads from Japan on etsy.  I seem to remember hearing something similar from Katy at No Big Dill in her post about printing onto twill tape, only she had found them locally.

So, c'mon kids, field trip to JoAnn's and possibly Michael's too!  Just what they love to hear!