Block Printing with Lizzy House

The Block Printing class with Lizzy House was fun times 10. I've always wanted to carve blocks and even had a cheapie Speedball stamp making kit (unopened) in my studio cabinet. Lizzy is a wonderful and hilarious teacher. Her dedication to art and the process brought a few of us to tears. I felt so lucky to have such a passionate instructor. Plus, she cracked me up all day long.

We started out with pencil sketches on paper and I decided a tomato slice might make a fun stamp. Or rather, it would be easy for my virginal carving. Since I had leftover media, I carved a little flower and swirl as well. These pink blocks are very easy to carve.

I stamped them on fabric with various results. It's kind of tricky to get your brayer and stamp covered perfectly in the oil-based relief ink. And guess what we used to clean up the ink? Vegetable oil! Worked like a charm and no odor or chemical exposure like turpentine or other oil removers.

Here's the flower and swirl printed. I like the way the background "noise" carvings add movement. You can carve all that away, but sometimes it adds to the design.

I popped by our local art supply store to stock up on more supplies. QuiltCon is going to cost me for a while.

And I finally boiled all the wax off my batik fabrics. It was kind of a process as I boiled each fat quarter size separately because the dyes ran in the boiling water. The pot I'm using was in Inspector Gadget's apartment when we started dating. I suspect it belonged to an old girlfriend, but now it's my wax boiling pot. A big wooden spoon gave up its life to dyeing as well.

Here they are wax free. I loved this technique too. It's taking all I have not to turn my back porch into a dyeing studio. Wouldn't that be fun? You could come over and dye with me! To see more of the fun batik class, go here.

And just so you don't think I'm slacking in the cooking department, I baked the Inspector an apple pie for his birthday and made him chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with milk gravy, salad, and peas. All his favorites. We had a full house and a fun birthday celebration.