Blog / screen-printed fabric
salty oat: the fabric shop!
Today, I'm so excited to announce the next phase of Salty Oat: an online fabric shop! I've always loved screen-printed fabrics (both their modern aesthetic and their handmade, earth-friendly nature), but have often been unable to find the designers I love in shops in the U.S. So, I decided to do something about it, and am so excited to add the first batch of screen-printed fat quarters to my virtual shelves.
Read more →
You can now purchase prints by Umbrella Prints in the shop, including a few from their newest collection, Floating World, which launched just last week. Umbrella Prints makes beautiful, organic fabrics and is run by two talented women, Amy and Carly. I've loved working with their fabrics, and competing in their annual Trimmings Competition (you can see my past entries here and here).
I have a few other designers lined up for the shop, which I'll be adding in the coming months. If you have any favorite independent designers you'd love to see in the shop, please let me know!
a look at fabric screen printing
Have you seen this gorgeous video on fabric screen printing, featuring the gals behind Ink and Spindle? Their printing set-up is enviable, and I love the system they've rigged up for drying fabric once it's been printed on!
(Video by Artisan Magazine. Above photo by Natalie Hunfalvay Photography.)
2013 umbrella prints trimmings competition
These days, I'm pretty much smitten with screen-printed fabrics. I love the look of one and two-color prints and I love being able to support independent designers who produce their work by hand. One of my goals for the year is to incorporate more screen-printed fabric into my work, so when I saw the posting for this year's Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition, I decided to enter for the second...
hand-printed hexagon wall quilt
English paper piecing has become my go-to project when I'm traveling, so after finishing my star blossoms quilt, I immediately switched over to a hexagon project I started ages ago, but had never finished. During plane rides this past fall to Salt Lake City for Sewing Summit and Houston for Quilt Market, I stitched away.
The main fabrics I used were hand-printed scraps by Sara Lee Parker, which I bought from her table at Crafty Bastards a few years ago. I paired her prints with an olive linen from my stash. I took an improv approach to the layout of the hexagons---I pulled basted hexagons from a pouch without looking, and stitched together whatever I pulled.
Once I'd stitched together all of the pieces I had, I decided to machine appliqué the entire shape to a rectangular scrap of muslin. I did echo quilting around the edges and then framed it all with a black binding.
I love how this piece turned out---and loved working with Sara's fabrics---and can't wait to hang it on my studio wall.
2012 umbrella prints trimmings competition
After the rush of getting ready for this month's craft fair was over, I finally had a chance to sit down and work on my entry for the Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition. [Umbrella Printsis an Australian textile house, specializing in hand-printed fabrics.] After staring at the neutral scraps I was sent (pictured above), and rejecting a number of ideas, I finally decided to try out Elizabeth...
