Karen Lewis : 'The Whys, Wheres and Hows of Hand Printing Fabric' : 16 October 2017
The speaker at our October meeting was Karen Lewis - a screen printer, textile designer, author and quilt maker.
She described her career path from teaching in London to setting up her Blueberry Park website where she sold craft items made by British designers, then adding her own screen printed designs to her website, to eventually selling only her own products.
She began designing her prints 5 years and although some are printed on a simple screen most of her commercial products are done on a photo emulsion screen which allows much more intricate detail. As she said “Anything that can be drawn, can be printed”. Karen showed us the print making technique and talked about how to achieve the best effects. She now uses this to make several hundred copies of each printed panel for her fabric club.
More recently she used the Kona Colour Solid fabric chart and printed her patterns over the top of the fabric swatches. The result was exciting and she posted it on Instagram where it was seen by a representative from Robert Kaufmann fabrics. The outcome was that Karen is now producing ranges for this company some of which are now being used in her quilts.
You can see Karen's work on her blog by following this link: karenlewistextiles.blogspot.co.uk
Lyn Fry
She described her career path from teaching in London to setting up her Blueberry Park website where she sold craft items made by British designers, then adding her own screen printed designs to her website, to eventually selling only her own products.
She began designing her prints 5 years and although some are printed on a simple screen most of her commercial products are done on a photo emulsion screen which allows much more intricate detail. As she said “Anything that can be drawn, can be printed”. Karen showed us the print making technique and talked about how to achieve the best effects. She now uses this to make several hundred copies of each printed panel for her fabric club.
More recently she used the Kona Colour Solid fabric chart and printed her patterns over the top of the fabric swatches. The result was exciting and she posted it on Instagram where it was seen by a representative from Robert Kaufmann fabrics. The outcome was that Karen is now producing ranges for this company some of which are now being used in her quilts.
You can see Karen's work on her blog by following this link: karenlewistextiles.blogspot.co.uk
Lyn Fry
On Tuesday 17th October, a group of us attended a work shop taught by Karen Lewis, following the previous evening’s talk.
We all had a great messy time, starting with drawing out our print design onto newspaper with great guidance from Karen as to if/how the design would work. We then taped the design to the reverse of an embroidery hoop which was covered in cotton gauze. Using the hoop makes it extremely useful for small designs you wish to do at home. We added the paint and had to do quite a few run-outs to anchor the paper to the gauze so that our designs when printed onto our fabric come away clean.
Lucy even managed to print two red crosses for her patch to be sent to the 70,273 Project. There was a great amount of swapping ideas and paint not to mention the fun had by all. Karen showed us more examples of her design work and encouraged us to continue – which I definitely think we all will…..
Sarah Hibbert
We all had a great messy time, starting with drawing out our print design onto newspaper with great guidance from Karen as to if/how the design would work. We then taped the design to the reverse of an embroidery hoop which was covered in cotton gauze. Using the hoop makes it extremely useful for small designs you wish to do at home. We added the paint and had to do quite a few run-outs to anchor the paper to the gauze so that our designs when printed onto our fabric come away clean.
Lucy even managed to print two red crosses for her patch to be sent to the 70,273 Project. There was a great amount of swapping ideas and paint not to mention the fun had by all. Karen showed us more examples of her design work and encouraged us to continue – which I definitely think we all will…..
Sarah Hibbert
