All that project completion stuff just got to be too boring (I’ll fess up to four tops in need of quilting,) so I had to play around with some fabric printing. In April I put a bunch of fabric that I thought might go together up on my design wall. One of the pieces was printed with ginkgo leaves, so I made that my theme.
First, I created a stamp out of adhesive foam sheets. Then, I coated the stamp with silk screen paint and went to work.
Here are the results I think work. The first is printed on black silk organza. The second is on previously dyed fabric. The third is on a painting rag. The fourth is on cotton velveteen that had been treated previously with a chemical discharge. The fifth is on commercial batik. I found that overprinting with light paint on a darker surface gives a translucent effect.
Here are the ones that are meh or worse. Either the color contrast wasn’t strong enough or the colors didn’t play well together. They’ll go back into my raw materials pile.
The Snarky Quilter 
I love the ginkgo leaves!Didi you carve the stamp yourself? Great job!
Thanks! The leaf was made from tracing around a coated paper drawing I had onto adhesive “fun foam” and then cutting the shape out with an Xacto knife. I cut out 2 images to raise the image a bit from the cardboard. It makes for a cleaner print. I gather you can also stick the foam onto clear acetate, but box cardboard was on hand.
Nice, I would like to try this soon. What are your favorite brands of fabric paint that you use.
There are many brands that work fine on fabric. Jacquard fabric paint, ProChem fabric paint, and FolkArt Fabric are the ones I’ve tried and had success with. I define success as thick enough to stay put on my foam stamp and supple enough when applied to fabric. I don’t recommend Tulip brand fabric paint as it leaves fabric stiff. Plain acrylic paint can be used on fabric but the fabric will be quite stiff. If you want to use acrylic paint you can mix it with fabric medium to get a softer hand. Yes, the paint issue for fabric is confusing. What will work for you may depend on what you want to paint on fabric and what you want to use the painted fabric for. You can also use thickened dye to paint fabric but that involves more steps.
I am looking for paints/inks to stamp designs on fabric that I can use in a quilt. Would any one of these be better than the others for colorfastness and durability? You seem to know a lot about your fabric arts! 🙂 Thank you for sharing your expertise.
All of the paints I mentioned before can be washed. I don’t know if they’d survive bleach, but they’re certainly used in decorating t-shirts, etc. I haven’t tried any for colorfastness (from repeated washings?) Fabric painted cloth does need to be heat set (iron, clothes dryer, etc.) after application (usually after 24 hours, check manufacturer’s specs.) and can be washed about 2 weeks later. In Sue Beevers’ book “Off The Shelf Fabric Painting,” laundering instructions for 4 types of fabric paints say hand wash, line dry. So, my guess is you might get more fading if your quilts are machine washed than if they’re hand washed.
Many thanks for the reply. That may be a good book for reference, thank you for the suggestions.
You’re welcome. Check out the books your local library may have on the subject.
You got some very cool effects with this!
I’ll be doing more with printing on silk organza. And maybe I’ll figure out how to use all these leaves in a quilt.