Silk Screen Printing Tatting

Still continuing on my theme of using tatting in as many ways as possible...  I screen printed a tatting design.  I drew another of my snowflakes - Snowdrop - and added it to the other two designs I'd already drawn to make a composition of snowflakes.

This is the screen after washing.  Just needs to be dried and it will be ready for printing.

I love the "ghosted" images you get on silk screens which get re-used

over and over again.  The marks of previous designs remain on the screen

and combine with the new images to make interesting compositions.

My first test.

Needs improving.

Some of the smaller snowflakes are too small

and get clogged up with ink and the details are lost.

The following week I returned to screen printing with another, bigger design.  I made the snowflakes larger and added more of the really simple little flakes in between the tatted ones.  

When washing my screen in between colour runs, I was struck by this image, where you can see the ink on the surface of the screen and the colour streaking down...

I printed a few things...

but this one is my favourite!

I'm happy with the mix of colours

(two different shades of blue)

and I like the pale on dark look.

I'm hoping to print a few more!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Box with Tatting?

Here is yet another way I have used tatting recently.  This is an unfinished project at the moment but I laser-cut four pieces of wood with snow crystals.  I didn't know whether I was going to make some sort of light box or ?...  So there is no bottom to this piece yet, just four sides.

I'm enjoying finding as many ways as possible to incorporate tatted lace into my projects!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Vitrified Tatting?

Here is another experiment I tried with tatting:  incorporating elements (not into glass as the title of this blogpost suggests but) into resin.  However, I say "vitrified tatting" because I think that's what it looks like.

The little bowls are a bit rough as I have not had time to sand and polish them yet.  But this first one has a rather appealing "frosted" look.

The snowflake I used was one of the samples I made when designing Crystal Star.  At the time, I wanted to be able to offer a version of this pattern that doesn't require beads.  It didn't make it to a final version but I rather like the multiple chains in the centre and may re-visit this design at some point.

To make it, I first cast a silicone mould of a bowl.  The bowl was my first attempt at "throwing" on the wheel so it wasn't the prettiest or neatest of bowls!  But anyway that's what I used for my mould.  The bowl was unglazed so had a matte, slightly rough finish which is why the resin also looks more matte and you can see the lines of the original bowl in my resin bowl.

Silicone being poured over bowl to make mould:

Bowl removed from the set silicone mould:

Lace snowflake laid into mould ready for resin pouring:

I hadn't mixed enough resin so I ended up pouring twice with a little bit more blue the second time which gave that slightly graduated colouring which I like.  You can see how rough the bottom of my bowl is at the moment.  Needs more work!

The second bowl I cast from a commercial, glazed bowl so the resin from that mould came out shinier and smoother... except for the fact that I had bubbles in my silicone mould!  But that's another story.  It just means the exterior of my resin bowl is rough and the bubbles from the silicone stand out on the surface.  It needs sanding and polishing.  I've also found that it's incredibly difficult to pour resin without causing some bubbling to occur and you can definitely see them in this second bowl.

I used clear resin this time:

The second tatting design is one of Robin Perfetti's called "Kaleidoscope".

So that's the resin bowl experiment.  I do like how the tatting becomes part of the bowl, like it's floating inside and I will definitely make more items if I get the chance.


Best wishes,
Frivole