From Sketchbook to Scarf

Tags

blue, charmeuse, digital fabric printing, georgette, ink, scarf design, sewing, silk, watercolor

my ink and watercolor sketchbook page

After purchasing a new 11″ x 14″ hard cover sketchbook for a workshop with Susan Shie May 2017, I decided to try drawing some mandala designs. I was also trying out a new pen from the workshop supply list, Uni-ball Signo 207 Bold. It’s a retractable gel pen which dries to a waterproof ink line. The line of the Bold size pen is wider and the ink takes longer to dry than the pens I usually use, but held up nicely to painting with watercolor after drying.

one end of my rectangle scarf design

I worked with a scan of my page in Photoshop, selecting and copying motifs to create a long 11″ x 58″ rectangle scarf design. I flipped the main mandala motif vertically and combined 4 together in a row alternating the flipped versions. I then selected and copied smaller motifs to fill in the areas between.

digital printing with fiber reactive dyes on silk

On the digital fabric printer at work, I test printed a sample on silk charmeuse. The colors appear dull right off the printer before steaming. After the dye is laid down by the wide format ink jet printer, the fabric is rolled in steamer paper and steamed under pressure. That’s when the fiber reactive dyes bond to the silk and the color  becomes more vivid.

I made a few adjustments to my file based on the test print, then printed the full size scarf on silk crepe georgette. Since the georgette fabric was more than twice as wide as my design, I printed it together with another of my scarf designs lengthwise on the fabric.

my silk georgette scarf designs after steaming

I finished the scarf with a hand rolled hem.

©2018 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

See the other scarf design I printed at the same time in this post.

Lady Beetles Scarf