Fortunately, I'm working on a piece that is made up of five separate pieces, which means that I can avoid working in the cold garage on a large table and can work on each piece individually in the kitchen. In the garage I balance a large piece of board between two trestle legs but in the kitchen I have used a smaller piece of board balanced between one of the trestle legs and the work top. It slopes down a little but I'm quite pleased with how the set up works and I can work for longer because I'm warmer. I'm layering colour by writing text, in layers on the fabric until I get the colours that I want. Partly due to the fact that I am printing on a thick linen and partly because I'm adding colour cautiously, it's taking some time and so being able to keep warm is important.
I've got plans to create a stitched sample for a completely unrelated piece and seeking inspiration I had Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn's 'In stitches' DVD running on my laptop whilst I was printing. How's that for multi-tasking?
This is the fabric after it was washed. I'm trying to create the type of colour variation that you would see in vegetation on the horizon and this is starting to build but is still some way off, albeit that it isn't quite as washed out as it appears in the photograph. Much more layering of text to do....
Great effect! Is what you're writing secret?
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