Hand printed fabric swap and watermelon top!!!

I am sewing, sewing, sewing at the moment, but sometimes it's nice to have a change, so whilst testing some construction techniques recently I thought it would be fun to have a go at printing. Every now and then I like to decorate my fabrics, but it got me to thinking, what about a hand printed fabric swap!!! More on that in a minute after I show you my new top...

Here it is in all its glory, but before we go any further, I need to point out that I have shamelessly copied a kids t-shirt design! I dyed this (formerly white) linen last week and realised straight away that I wouldn't wear this fabric as it's too sugary, but when I came across this t-shirt on pinterest I knew what to do!!!

I bought a stamp set for my husband from Donna Wilson a couple of years ago, which has some perfect stamps for this project. I have just checked her website and unfortunately it no longer seems available, but here is a product image of the set. I used the raindrop  and eye stamp.

I dipped a sponge into some black screen printing ink and pushed it down a bit to make a stamp pad kind of thing and just pressed the stamp into the sponge and then onto the fabric. I think it worked out quite well. It's by no means perfect and I made no effort to mark the pattern position beforehand, but does that matter?

Here are the creepy eyes on the back!

You can see that some of the wooden block edges have marked the fabric on the front where I put pressure in the wrong area of the stamp. It's kind of messy, but there's no mistaking that this is a hand printed item!!!

I made the pocket out of some cloud 9 faric from 'the village haberdashery', which is ear marked for Maria. I was going to leave it off, as this is what makes my top a blatant copy, but it looks so good...

The shorts I'm wearing are some that I made a few weeks back and have been wearing loads. I wasn't going to blog them as they didn't seem very interesting, but as they're here I may as well. They are using the same vintage pattern I used for these pedal pushers, but shorter and with a scallop hem.

Right, now onto my idea for a hand printed fabric swap!

I have taken part in something like this before, but it was set up for quilters and it was to swap in groups of four, giving each swapee a fat quarter of your print. I really like this idea, but think it would work great for dressmakers if we swapped in pairs and each gave each other one metre of printed fabric, so that there is a possibility of making something with it afterwards.

Who would be up for doing something like this?

Before you run away scared at the thought, you do not need to have any previous experience in print to produce something fabulous. Look at the following (very acheivable) samples.

This gorgeous linen has a simple ink wash line running down the border

Printed spots, acheivable with a cork and some fabric stamp inks???

Some shibori/tie dyeing

Hand painting with fabric inks

Hand painted stripes!

Amazingly simple idea using bleach, some branches and a spray bottle!

Now I'm not sure how many people will be interested in taking part in something like this and I do not have a massive amount of followers to appeal to, but it should be fun shouldn't it?

Post a comment below if you think that this sounds like a good idea and if I get more than 2 responses then lets do it!!! I'll do a follow up post where you can officially sign up and be allocated a swap partner as well as follow ups after that with print inspirations.

Here are some links to some of my past efforts...

Mimi blouse
Previous fabric swap here
Lino printing (on paper)