Adventures in Sun Printing

After seeing so many people (Vintagepix, Pokey, Dharma Trading, google search)making awesome sun prints with Pebeo Setacolor paints, I knew that I had to try it for myself.  So I ordered a set of the translucent paints -- the only ones that react with sunlight/heat.  I immediately had a problem to solve: You have to leave the fabric and sun blocking material out in the sun for at least an hour.  I have a very windy 17th floor terrace.  How was I going to convince the fabric and the stencils (my sun blocking material) to stay put for an hour?  I took to Twitter with my problem and I got some great answers back.  (Thank you to all who responded!)  In the end the most low-tech solution worked for me.

I taped a trash bag to the picnic table on our terrace.  And then I pinned the fabric to the trash bag.

Not a sexy solution, but it worked!

Then I painted the fabric...

...laid out a jumbly collection of stencils (sneak peek alert - these are Balzer Designs stencils from TCW releasing in July)...

...and pinned the stencils so that they wouldn't blow away.

Then all I had to do was wait.

Removing the stencils was a little like being a kid on Christmas morning!  My jaw just dropped open when I saw the clean clear prints.  I had expected something a little more murky.

I immediately teed up another piece of fabric and tried another color way.

Delicious!  Then I went for broke and tried overprinting on printed fabric.

However I was somewhat negligent in my pinning and the wind kicked up, so some prints came out well...

...and others not so well.

Lesson learned: I need to be careful and really pin things down.  And if the wind kicks up, give it up.  Come back another day! 

But with all this pretty fabric around I *had* to make something.

 I figure, I'm going to need an apron for demo-ing and doing make-and-takes at CHA, so why not be a walking billboard for my new designs?!  Can't decide whether I like the apron tied in the front or the back...but I know that I love that I started the day with plain muslin and ended it with an awesome new apron!

Thanks for stopping by!