Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Material manipulation I
We had an awesome course of fabric manipulation at school, where we could test out some various printing techniques. Usually you see these techniques used in t-shirt prints, especially in the nineties.
We tested glitter print, flock/fuzz print and vinyl-like foil print. The flock print was hardest of these three, since you had to be very careful with the temperature and the use of glue. If the temperature of hot iron is not hot enough it will rip the transfer fuzz/flock or the glue might not stick to the flock. But after a while of practice it gets easier to understand what temperatures to use and how to attach the flock.
The foil print was the easiest one of the three. It works a bit like the flock print, but you don't have to be as careful with the temperatures as with the flock. The print surface comes out smooth and shiny.
The glitter print was on the other hand a bit of a mess, since it's just plain glitter that you spinkle on top of you pattern made of glue.
The only problem with these patterns are the fact that they are not durable. Patterns are almost gone after a couple of washes, which is a shame really. I guess there are some room for improvements to make regarding the textile glue, so that it could make a durable and washable, cool looking fabric.
We were asked to print a pattern of our choise on a fabric of our choise using one of these techniques.
I chose the classical japanese pattern called "seikaiha". It was originally a Chinese pattern that was designed to illustrate oceans and seas on maps.
It's not an easy pattern to print. Targeting was hell. I don't have a picture of the finished fabric, but a couple of pictures from the process.
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