Screen Print Skirt

Recently, Sarah MacIntyre spent a month as Artist in Residence at Macauley House, and was kind enough to host a screen printing club at KIAC while she was here.  I missed the first weekend (filmmaker Santiago Giralt, also at the Macauley House in May, was hosting a workshop on directing actors) but made it to the following two Sundays.

I've done some screen printing in the past, beginning with a workshop with Todd Stewart during his residency last year (check out his blog posts from February and March to see the amazing work he created while he was here), as well as a of couple sessions cranking out pillows and t-shirts for the film fest.  Sarah definitely had a few different techniques than I've used before, and printing in hot summer weather has different demands from printing in cooler conditions.  Everything dried so quickly!  I was particularly interested to learn that you can print using stencils; I've only ever used photo-emulsion before.

I brought two pieces of muslin to the workshops, and layered a few different stencil prints across the breadths to create this:

Which I then sewed into this, keeping with my pledge to go pantless:

(I like how, if you peek past my left arm, you can see my refrigerator collage with all kinds of KIAC events included.)

I used the same basic design from Sew What! Skirts that I used for my first skirt, except this time I used a sewn-in elastic waistband.  I used bright red thread to match the screen printing ink and to stand out against the creamy muslin.

I really embraced all the "misprints" that happened while working on the fabric.  I love how one print is never really identical to all the other prints from the same screen or stencil; it adds so much character.

I am tempted to add more red thread to the skirt.  I've been looking at Kathryn Clark's work lately, and feel that something similar to the stitching on some of her foreclosure quilts could look really amazing on this skirt.  Or it could turn into a hot mess.  I can't decide (and if I'm going to be hand stitching anything, I should be working on my quilt).

I'm also going to be embracing wrinkles in this skirt.  The muslin creases something terrible, and the printed areas tend to 'hold' the creases no matter how much I iron.  Next time I wash this, I will probably twist it up and make all sorts of on-purpose wrinkles, so that it will look like it's supposed to be that way and not like I'm lazy.

There are a few more photos up on Flickr.

[I have to edit this and add my thanks to Marigold at Hideous! Dreadful! Stinky! for including my skirt in her five faves round up.  I'm really quite honoured and so very glad that people like my artsy-fartsy mess!  So many people are making such beautiful skirts and dresses; it's really very inspiring being involved with the Summer of No Pants.  Don't miss the Flickr pool.]