Repeat Pattern Workshop with Radica Textiles!

Hello!

The second awesome workshop I got to go to this week was a Repeat Pattern Workshop with Sarah Templin of Radica Textiles!  It was last night at Baltimore Print Studios, which is where Alex and I went to a screen printing workshop about a month ago (I wrote about that here).  It was so fun!!

First we learned about patterns and how using different motif layouts can completely change the overall look of a fabric.  Then we got to sketch motif ideas.

Sarah brought a lot fabric and pattern books to look at for inspiration.

To see how the negative space around a motif will look, you can cut a drawing of it into four pieces and move the pieces around.  Sarah gave us tips while we were sketching and she said I should try drawing a flowery sketch I had already done but with my left hand, so I tried that.  I liked how it turned out and that's what I used for mine!

Once we decided on a motif, we cut our shape(s) out of adhesive foam and stuck them to an acrylic square.  

We picked an ink color (we used Speedball ink, just like we did in the screen printing workshop) and used a brayer to spread it evenly onto big palettes.

Then we used the brayers to put the ink on our stamp and stamped it onto cloth napkins!

On each napkin we were supposed to try different layouts.  On one I did some up and down and side to side mirroring, another one has a half drop layout (vertical lines off from each other by half a motif), one is random (I forget what that type is called!) and on the last one I just did one line of my motif.  Here they are in order.

Everyone had such cool designs!!  They were all so different.  Here's a picture that Sarah put on Instagram of everybody's designs!

I had so much fun!!  I want to get some cloth napkins and try to make more with another motif soon!  Kyle, one of the studio's owners, used their teeshirt flash dryer to set the ink on our napkins. If I do my own at home I can iron them for a while or put them in the dryer.

I went to a fun exercise class today!  I'll write more about it tomorrow :)

Thanks for reading!