Test fabric
Online Sale of the Week 20% off pre-made thermofax screens.
A little step by step process of using a thermofax screen to screen print!
1) Either put your screen into a plastic frame using duct tape or use the duct tape alone to create a frame.
2) Make sure you have a good padded surface to work on.
3) Pick your paint. Can be Golden Fluid Acrylic, Setacolor Opaque, Prochem Textile paint, or even Lumiere paint. The mica in the Lumiere can clog up the screen so you have to be really good about cleaning it immediately after use.
4) Make sure you have a tool to move the paint across the screen to push the paint through. The plastic/hard paper cards that come with credit card offers are great.
5) Lay out your fabric on your padded surface.
6) Put your screen shiny side down where you would like the image to print. (There are two sides to the screen. Shiny and matte. You will be able to tell.)
7) Squirt the paint in a line down the length of your image or use a popsicle stick to get the paint out of the jar and into a line.
8) Use the tool to pull the paint across the image and push it through the screen onto your fabric.
9) Pull up the corner to see if you've gotten the image as clear as you want it. If not, lay it back down and pull more paint through the image with your tool/card.
10) When you are done with the screen clean it immediately so that you ensure a long life for your screen. You want to be able to use it over and over.
With that in mind I didn't know how to achieve the look I was after, so I printed each on pre-treated inkjet cotton and on ExtravOrganza. Then I auditioned them on the background fabric and decided that the first layer would be the house printed on the cotton. The next layer is the family photo collage on the ExtravOrganza, shown by itself below. Doesn't look like much does it?
But look what happens when pinned over the house print....very ethereal...exactly the affect I was trying to achieve. Yes!!! The background fabric is called Etchings by 3sisters for Moda...absolutely perfect.
I then removed the ExtravOrganza print and machine quilted the piece. including the house. Once that was done I fringed the edges of the family photo, which is easy to do with organza..because it is silk I could have burned the edges but I thought that might give it too hard an edge. Layered it back over the house and hand embroidered around the edges using a simple featherstitch.
Then I simply embellished with my Grandmothers' mother-of-pearl buttons, tied at the corners, added a small key and a Habitat for Humanity charm that says, "Bless this House", exactly the right concept for this challenge quilt.
When I read what the final word would be..."Home", my musings were that it seemed so fitting...our first word was "Sanctuary" and now our final word is "Home". Many times I've said, "my home is my sanctuary" and I've always hoped that I've created a "home" for my family that gives them that warmhearted feeling.
