Screen printing and Sophie…

Here are the pictures from my crafting day yesterday.
Here is Sophie.  I’ve just about finished her other arm now so just the ears to do.  It’s so much easier knitting her than it was knitting Elijah.  I think that’s mainly because Elijah was knit in cotton.  She is pilling a little already though so that’s the downside!

Here is my screen printing exposing table I’ve set up.  I bought 2 lamps from Ikea which were really REALLY cheap and decided to use my cutting table as a temporary set up until I can find a nice new permenant solution!  Here are the lamps set up and ready to expose my acetates.

I painted the photo emulsion on to the screen and have had to leave it to dry for hours in the bottom the wardrobe, I could have done with a fan really because it took forever!

Here is a better shot of the acetates:

And here is the screen all exposed and ready to print:

I’m quite happy with my first attempt although when I was rinsing out the emulsion some of the design came off on the knitting print. I’m not sure why, it could be because I haven’t let the screen expose and therefore ‘harden’ for long enough or it could be the design itself.  I think it was probably the length of time I left it.  It was left for 35 minutes so maybe I’ll try it for longer the next time.

I had a pane of glass over the designs to really flatten them to the screen and it’s created an outline I wasn’t expecting.  It wont cause me a problem when I’m printing though.

I’m so excited about the printing part though – I’m off to work in a bit but will rush home to get started.  I have three inks to try; a black, a lovely golden yellow and a cherry red!  Will post pics of the results later!