First day back in the print room

Today I prepared my fabric and colours for printing. The A4 and more store at uni had 2 shades of poly suede that matches my colour palette well and is £1.65 a metre, so I decided to get some to pigment print on. It reminds me of my grandpa's satchels and its low cost is appropriate for a war time theme, where rationing applied and the government restricted sale of clothing.

left: lighter suede, top middle: darker suede, bottom middle:
reverse side of light suede, right: back of darker suede

The darker suede matches Epaulette Red and the lighter suede Satchel Brown

It took a while to get the correct tones of pigment to print with, but colour is so important in forming a cohesive collection that I thought it time well spent. I added opaque white to the pigment binder, so hopefully the colours will look almost the same as they do in the pots when printed onto the dark coloured fabric from the store. I tried to make a wide range of colours so that my samples will be interesting and encompass the different moods related to 'sinister vintage'.

I also dyed my own fabric, choosing lighter colours made from sand beige and durazol yellow direct dyes. The fabric is suitable for devoré, which I intend to try next.

To achieve a light enough shade of yellow on some silk/viscose georgette, I followed the print department's recipe, and left the 3 pieces of fabric in the dye for just 2 minutes, 4 minutes and 5 minutes.

Jersey cotton was left in the beige dye for 25 minutes, but the effect was extremely subtle, and slightly uneven. This 'unprofessional' uneven look was intended, to mirror the aged worn appearance of war time clothes now.