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A Screen Printed Quilt FINISH!

Orbital Spotting Front

YAY! I have finished the screen printed quilt! I’m considering calling it “Orbital Spotting” but I’m open to suggestions. *wink wink*

Orbital Spotting Front

Super happy with this one! I made the blocks based on “Anita’s Arrowheads” technique by Anita Grossman. You cut all your pieces for one block with just a few rotary cuts. It’s a really fun technique! It makes for nice clean looking blocks with pretty accurate points.

The top sat while I worked on the back. The back actually took way longer to make than the front. However, I did use up all my scraps from the front! I even used an older creamy/brown calico-ish type of print to punch up the more modern fabrics. I kind of like the back better than the front… but that’s just me.

Orbital Spotting Back

I worked with my husband on this quilt as a collaboration. He is a screen printer, and he did the decision making as to what to print and where. He used discharge ink which releases the dye of the fabric rather than laying a layer of ink over the fabric. This means that after it’s washed, the printed area is just as soft as the rest of the fabric – and you can iron over it!

Screen Printing process

Here are some screen printing process pics. This is the “big ring” film. The black of the film is opaque and can block light.

Film positive for printing

Mixing discharge ink – 3 part chemical process that needs specific measurements:

Mixing Discharge Inks

Screens are made by using light-sensitive emulsion, opaqued film, and a light source:

Screen printing screens

Then Gregg pulls the ink over the stencil, or hole, in the screen – and onto the quilt top:

screen printing onto quilt top

Printing over seams can get messy, and there are a few spots in the printing that are not perfect, but all in all, it came out beautifully! It sat for another long bit while I was saving up for my new Juki 2010Q. Now it’s the first quilt I’ve quilted on my new machine!

It worked so well! I used a walking foot for some parts, then switched to free-motion-quilting for all the fills. I ‘eyeballed’ all the lines. I don’t like taking time to mark up the quilt, and I don’t really care about perfection. As long as it is sewn well and will hold up in the wash, I’m good.

After it was all quilted I had a big decision to make as to what to used for binding. I found this darker grey Peppered Cotton that I think works so well. It ties all the other colors together – so fun! Now that it’s finished, I can bring it to show and tell at PMQG tonight! Hope to see you there!

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