Refinished Sewing Box

I was really lucky to find this cute sewing box at the Goodwill a few weeks ago, and for a steal by our Goodwill’s standards – $10!  Normally everything is so inflated.  They sell used items for more than the item costs new.  So $10 was a very, very good deal.  It was basically in good shape, just needed a little touch up.  Someone on Instagram told me about Restore-A-Finish so I checked it out and it seemed like the best solution.  That stuff is great.  Basically no prep, so I recommend checking that out if you need to refinish an item.  It covered up all the scrapes and dings nicely.  It was missing a few screws, so I had to hunt a few of those down as well, but our local ACE Hardware had everything I needed.

This sewing box is a little bit smaller than my other one, but I think it’s a good size for holding everything needed for a project at a time.  Right now I’m trying to finish up my hand appliqued quilt for a long overdue wedding present (the happy couple just had their first baby yesterday, I’m about 3 years late on their quilt). 

The inside was in really good shape.  I just took the air compressor to it and blew out all the dust and lint.  It’s an inexpensive sewing box to begin with, but it’s previous owner didn’t use it much from what I can tell. 

I’m so glad to have this project completed, all I seem to do is start projects so it’s always nice to finish something.  Right now this is sitting in the living room by my chair.  My husband asked me if that’s where it was going to live.  I think it’s in his way when he walks around the couch.  I told him yes, that’s where it’s going to live until the quilt is finished…and maybe longer if he makes a fuss about it. 

I’ll be at Quilt Market on Friday and Saturday since it’s here in town, so be sure to stop me and say “hi” if you happen to recognize me.  One of my very good friends is coming to town tomorrow and I can’t wait to pick her up at the airport!

Screen Prints Now Available

Fabric panel screen prints, as well as art prints on cardstock, are now available in my Etsy shop!  I don’t know which, if any, of these prints will be printed again so be sure to get them now if you are interested.

Troubleshooting

My order of larger screens arrived and I got right to work burning a screen.  And then I started to have problems.  So I’ve been troubleshooting various things to see what went wrong.  At this point I’m pretty sure it’s the emulsion.  The emulsion I use should last about 4-6 weeks but it got warm in the house, and usually it’s not, so I think that sped along the decay.  You can store emulsion in the refrigerator, but you have to bring it to room temperature before coating the screen, and I’m normally doing stuff on the fly and don’t have that much foresight to set it out to warm up.  I bought new emulsion this week but haven’t opened it up yet to try it.  I went back to the “pink stuff” I’ve used before.  It’s pre-sensitized and lasts a little longer.  If I know it’s going to be warm outside again I’ll go ahead and pop it in the fridge this time around. 

This is what I’m printing.  I’ll be reburning this screen as I didn’t get some of the detail I wanted.  I hand drew some frames, scanned them into the computer, cleaned them up with Illustrator and then made a repeat.  This is being printed on to fat quarters of fabric.  I am super excited for this one. 

The first prints had issues.  Some of the emulsion didn’t clear out of some of the tighter spaces all the way and I noticed that some of the emulsion blew out of spots it shouldn’t have.  And then I pushed too much ink through the screen, resulting in the chunky, hazy edges on some spots.  When that happens you have to go wash the screen out and start over. 

I’ve been told the prints look “vintage”…but I know they are mistakes so it bother’s me.  I’ll probably add these to the shop with the other prints.  That will be happening this week.  I also printed an Eames chair and polaroid camera.

Since it’s Mother’s Day today, I thought I’d share a picture of my little guy.  He is getting so big.  His birthday is in a little over a week and he’ll be 5…my how time flies!

Cookie Crafting

We did a different sort of crafting yesterday, one that takes a lot for me to push through with a smile on my face.  I am not a baker, not even cookies, and I usually don’t cook with Brice.  My husband is really good about having Brice help him, but I get too worried about the mess and never do.  I am trying to be much better about that sort of thing and so yesterday I decided we needed to make up my great grandma’s sugar cookies.  Of course he had a great time.  He helped me to measure and mix everything and took lots of tastes.  We had a good time together, which was really the point.  I want to be sure he remembers these sorts of things as he grows up.  I just kept reminding myself it was only flour and dough and could easily be wiped up with a sponge when we were done.  Seeing how much fun he had was well worth any mess we created.

The Process of Screen Printing

I’m waiting for new screens to arrive, so in the mean time I had my old YuDu screen sitting around and I decided to try a two color print with it.  I had a single transparency sheet sitting around, it was actually from an inkjet printable pack, but I ruined it.  They have this sticky backing on it to hold the ink from the inkjets, but I accidentally printed on the wrong side and then when I went to wash it off it made the back un-sticky.  Whoops.  I thought I’d be fun to take photos along the way today and share a little glimpse of the process.

I decided the transparancy would be perfect to try out using India ink to trace around my drawing.  First I traced around my little moose with a dip pen and the India ink and then I flipped my transparency around and filled in a background with a paint brush and the India ink.  I really like this method for the hand drawn effect it gives the prints.

Then after coating my screen with emulsion and letting it dry in front of my box fan ($8 at Goodwill) for about 10 minutes it’s ready to burn.  I cut my transparency apart between the ships and positioned them on my glass and laid the screen over it.  Then I expose it for 8 minutes.

I’m just keeping it real with these photos.  I do this out of my laundry / cat room.  I folded laundry while the screens burned, cleaned out the litter box, swept…  Glamorous life, I tell ya.  But seriously, this irritates me and will be getting beautified sometime soon.

After the screens done burning I take it to my sink to rinse out.  The light green is where the light was blocked by the ink on the transparency.  The exposed emulsion is a darker green, but after reacting with my water (with our high iron/mineral content) it turns a lovely shade of grey for me.

After all the unexposed emulsion is washed away I’m left with my screen ready to print.  This side, with the fine lines, I’ll print second.  The black on the screen, the pickaxe and “one more block” (from a t-shirt print for my stepson who loves Minecraft) is stained on the screen.  It doesn’t affect the screen or it’s use.  I believe you can use a specific cleaner to get that off, but I don’t have any and don’t really care about it being there.  It doesn’t hurt the prints.

I let my screen dry in front of the fan and gather paper and cut fabric to size.

After the screen is dry I tape off the detailed side and my exposure gauge (this lets me know if my screen was properly exposed) and begin to make registration marks for my paper and fabric so I know just where to print.  When I lay my material down I want to be sure the print goes right into the center of it, so registration marks with the blue tape help me line it up.  I do have hinge clamps on the way to hold my screens in place, as this is important for multiple color prints, but since this is a crappy, thin YuDu screen, I can just tape it to the table at the top and it’s a great “hinge”.

Now I’m ready to pull ink through.  First I pull the more solid, background color.  I wanted my baby moose to be pink.

After I am done printing my pink background, I wash my screen and clean up my mess.  The screen has to dry again, as well as my prints.  once all is dry, I’m ready to do the second color.

But first I had to mix it up.  I wanted a dark grey to go with the pink.  I picked up a Pyrex-style bowl at Goodwill for a few dollars and use that to mix my inks in.  After I’m done mixing (and using in this case) it’s easy for me to scrape down the sides (with my dollar store spatula and thrifted spoons) and get all the excess ink into a jar for storage.  I use food storage containers from the Dollar Store as well as old peanut butter and jelly jars I save. 

It’s so satisfying to get these prints as an end product.  From my conception as a drawing to a final print is an amazing sense of achievement.  Not all of the prints lined up perfectly, but I like both perfect and imperfect.  This was my first attempt at two color screen printing and I’m so excited with how easily it went.  But I do have to say, it wouldn’t have been possible with out Hilary Williams videos at Creative Bug.  If you are interested in screen printing, I highly recommend watching all of her videos.  It was a great refresher and I learned some new things as well.  In particular, I liked how she coated her screens with emulsion so much better than what I was doing, so I now follow her example and I’m so pleased with the results.  These prints (fabric and paper) will also be listed in my Esty shop in the very near future.  I’ll be sure to make an announcement when that happens.

Screen Printing - Take 2

Well, with the right tools, everything finally worked out.  It only took me two years to attempt it again, but after lots of research and talking with my friend (and talking my husband into building me an exposure table) it has all turned out beautifully.  The hardest part was deciding what to burn first!  But isn’t that always how it is?!  These are two drawings I’ve had for a little while in my notebook.  A few weeks ago I was researching my Cherokee and Blackfoot ancestors again and it lead to me drawing up everything reminiscent of that.  I’ve yet to find my great-great-grandmother’s on any registers, but I enjoy looking.  My mother is supposedly registered with the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, but we’ve yet to confirm this.  Her father insisted she was, so one of these days we’ll need to make the trip.

If you follow me on Instagram (SometimesCraftr), it’s no secret that I love drawing feathers.  So of course that had to make it onto a screen.  I will have many more coming along just as soon as more screens arrive.  I’ve been working on “collections” of drawings for awhile, so I’m very excited to burn those up and start printing them onto fabric.

I organized my space in the laundry room where I’m set up.  It’s not nearly as clean as that table space shows in the photo.  It’s full of stuff.  In fact, I need to go get another shelf or two to add to this system on the wall.  I mixed up a few colors.  Right now I just have red, blue, yellow, white and black for mixing.  I think I find mixing my colors one of the best parts.  I have some magenta, cyan and more yellow arriving this week so I can mix even more fun colors.  Of course the cats like to help out.  Newman keeps walking up to the light and sticking his head in the way.  Norman just likes to lay by it and soak up the heat it gives off.  My setup is a fairly basic one.  My husband built me a table with lid and we bought a piece of glass from a local glass shop.  It’s 1/2”, clear with no UV coating.  The lights are two 500 watt halogens.  I’m using Ulano TZ emulsion and burning for 8 minutes.  I love the fast burn times.  Once I figure out packaging for shipping I’ll be listing those feathers and headdresses I printed on fabric in my Etsy shop.  I’m also going to be on the lookout for some nice paper and will also list prints…so stay tuned!

Stalled

With everything that has gone on in life lately, crafting has fallen by the wayside.  I sound like a broken record.  I have been cryptic, but that’s because it involves lawyers and I can’t say anything at this point.  My grandmother died two months ago today, just two months after her diagnosis, and my family has yet to be able to grieve.  We all feel paralyzed by the other parties who seem to have a one tract mind.  Mean and vindictive doesn’t even begin to describe it.  We haven’t even been able to lay my grandmother to rest because her ashes are being held hostage, and to me that is the greatest travesty in all of this.  I haven’t told Brice yet that his beloved GG died and in some small way I think I was waiting until we could spread her ashes to explain what was going on.  It would be closure.  While I’d like to hope that those will be restored to us, her blood relations, I feel as though the other side has probably flushed them down the toilet.  It’s truly terrible to feel that someone would do that.  I don’t ever like to believe that people are that terrible.  I like to believe the best in everyone, I am the person that will see the other side in all matters and believe they are doing what they feel is right from their point of view, but that is not the case for me with this.  And if I feel that’s not the case, you can place money on it.  I’m usually to the point of ridiculous in my understanding of others and why they react the way they do; I’m way too understanding.  I just can’t be understanding in this anymore.  Lies are being told and while we know truth is on our side, it’s so hard to have your character put into question by lies.  All I can hope is that the judges will see the truth.  Unfortunately, the “good guys” don’t always win in real life.  I’m trying to focus on the good in every day – today I will focus on the beautiful sunshine and my ability to work in the yard and prepare for summer crops.  And perhaps I will walk through the woods on our property to see what plants I can find for dyeing fabrics, since that’s on the summer to-do list.  I always need something to look forward to.