Melanie Testa

Multicolor Print Sets

Again, again.

A little more than a month ago, I had an exercise accident that derailed my blogging efforts! It certainly took me off my feet! I tore my right calf muscle. I couldn’t walk for close to two weeks! It slowed my art making down, it spiraled into taking a break from everything in my life.

But!! It can’t be all bad! My birthday came around (it’s a big one, 5-0), and… I got a pair of Purple Moxi Lolli roller skates! I know! How does one go from leg injury to roller skating? I assure you, it makes sense to me!

I have been printing too! I have 12 of 28 new colors swatched, in all four values, and I am in the midst of printing my newest multicolor print sets. When I am finished swatching the entire color triangle, I am going to have a boat load of new fabrics to begin piecing quilt tops! Please, check out my art insta, to see many recent prints from all of these groupings.

These will be small quilts, as I am printing just 27 fat sixteenths with each grouping of three colors mixed. This isn’t a lot of fabric, each collection will need to be paired with commercial, low volume or single color prints. And, well, that’s exciting!

I will leave you with a photograph of my Man and I, celebrating during my birthday weekend. I am grateful to be me, 50, a goofball artist and fitness enthusiast, who wants to dance roller skate! I am glad you are here and interested in my shenanigans too. 

Sometimes Lessons are Re-learned

Over and over again!

This week, I continue the journey of swatching a new color triangle, while also printing my most recent textile designs. I have chosen three colors and mixed them in all four gradations. The scissor print you see here is a three color design. The scissor layer was printed using Thermofax screen print, The background and the coloring of the scissors are done by way of fun foam stamps.

As I had mixed three colors, I printed 9 scissor layers in each of the Dark values, so that I can then print 3 Pale backgrounds, 3 Light backgrounds and 3 Medium backgroaunds each, before beginning to print the third and final color. BUT. I forgot to label the ‘Top’ of the Thermofax scissor layer and I ended up flipping the layer over and printing the repeat backward on 6 of the yellow/orange coloration. My fun foam stamps cannot print backward. Ouch. 

So, I labeled the Thermofax screen, mixed some additional yellow/orange and I am about to replace the backward prints. Don’t worry, I will be able to use the backward prints! All is not lost, I just can’t color them with the stamps I have created for the purpose. 

I am giving Live updates about this project in our FB Community group by the same name, Playful Fabric Printing. Please join us there!

The Final Carve?

This has been an interesting repeat to carve. I love floral motifs and roses printed on cloth. Carving a rose by hand is a great challenge.

Drawing and depicting roses is not easy, there are so many curved petals! Then, you need to figure out how to carve it in an elegant hand. I like to carve in stages, printing a copy at each major stopping point. In this case, I printed on both copy paper and cloth, so that I could evaluate the printed artifacts. It turns out, I want to see some shaded areas on the dark half of each rose.

Now, I prepare to remove the last bit of shading in the rose. I am plotting my course and thinking through how to go about it. I really like this carving and I do not want to mess up!

Wish me luck. 

 

Floribunda! RJR and some Multicolor Print Sets

I am happy to announce the debut of Floribunda! by RJR Fabrics. A textile line geared to quilters, sprinkled with blowsy roses, tendriled vines, leaves and rich, deep colors. The line was created using techniques illustrated and explained within the pages of Playful Fabric Printing. The line will ship to stores in late March 2018. In the coming months, I will be making quilt tops out of this fabric, please stay tuned!

In the meantime, I have been playing with Inovart Eco Karve, which can be seen as red rubber in the above photograph. There are 5 multicolor sets made with the red Invovart Eco Karve, thus far. Each of these designs are 4″ square, and utilizes a ‘Buta’, a larger medallion like motif (the Buta measure less than 3″ tall), often found in Indian textiles, using a set repeat. Each motif contains a flower. With each subsequent carve, I was able to achieve a finer and finer line.

Soft Kut the grey stuff pictured above at the bottom of the image, has been my go-to carving material for years. I find the Eco Karve to be denser, which allows me to carve a finer line. Move over Soft Kut.

Each time I completed a multicolor print set, (the carved rubber along with the plexiglas mounted fun foam stamps), I printed a sample of each set using a similar palette. I did this in order to level the playing field in assessing them next to their fellas. 

As I just restocked on cotton print cloth, I am itching to begin printing enough of these beauties to start making a quilt! I have about 18 handprints in the hopper! My goal is to print at least 2.5 yards of the Butas in total, and to then print or dye supportive single colors to pad that out. That means I need to Salty Soda Soak at least 1.5 yards and to get printing!

I am, as ever, excited to begin!!