My Latest Fabrics for The Printed Fabric Bee

It has been a bit of time since I have posted about my submissions for The Printed Fabric Bee — indeed too long! The group has been very understanding of me missing deadlines, and I very much appreciate that!

For any new readers, The Printed Fabric Bee is a group of 12 surface design enthusiasts, who designate one member each month to serve as the “Queen Bee.” The Queen gets to select a theme and colors for her fabric collection, and the rest of us worker bees interpret her wishes in our original hand-painted fabrics.

Each month an original collection of fabrics is sent to the Queen, but also to one lucky blog reader, who with their comment on the blog (link above) has the opportunity to win a collection of 6-inch squares of the handcrafted fabrics.

The Queen Bee for the month of May was Leslie Tucker Jenison. Leslie chose “making marks with found objects” for her theme, asking that the fabric be primarily neutrals with a pop of color. I immediately had an idea for a plastic container of keys I have in my collection... you know, the ones at the hardware store that were cut wrong?

I placed the keys on top of my form printing surface. Notice how in the above photo that several of the keys are placed hanging off the mat. I think that helps with creating interest.

Sorry for the blurry photo (below). But even with the blur, you can see the basics. I put my my selected paint colors (PROFab Opaque Textile Paint) on a piece of pallette paper, and then roll my brayer over it, picking up the color. Then simply roll the brayer across the piece of fabric that I placed over the keys! Presto! The imprint of the keys is transferred.

I love how easy this technique is! In fact I surprise myself that I don’t use it more often. I’m very happy with how this piece turned out: quick, easy and bold!

The theme for June was vintage, chosen by that month’s queen, Lynn Krawczyk. Her color request? Any color but pink.! Although I absolutely love vintage, this theme was a bit trickier. Since the piece was to have a vintage feel I thought of crocheted doilies and a neutral, beige color.

I began by using an Australian print, Untitled Neutral by Nambooka. Then I took out my Round Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate and mixed up a couple shades of brown from my PROFab Opaque Textile Paint, brayering the paint onto the printing plate in an even layer. I placed my doily on the printing plate and pressed it down all over, then removed the doily, which gave me a stencil/mask effect in the paint. I then pressed my fabric down onto the plate to transfer the doily print.

In the above photo you can see the doily, Gel Printing Plate all ready to print and, at the bottom, some of the already printed fabric. Because the round printing plate is smaller than the fabric I was working on, I printed the doily circles multiple times, working with different tones of light and dark.

While happy with the look, I did feel there was too much brown, and so I wanted to add a color to brighten the fabric up.

I brayered PROFab Transparent Textile Paint in turquoise onto some bubble wrap and applied it like a stamp randomly through the fabric. I think the turquoise helped my distressed, vintage-look texture pop!

If you are interested in exploring surface design techniques yourself, we have some wonderful classes on the books for later this summer and fall, as noted in the sidebar at the beginning of this post.