LAIKONIK HAS MOVED!

Hi everyone, Laikonik has a new location. There is a gorgeous new website and blog together at www.laikonik.com.au

Come on over and visit! Lots of gorgeous new things and offers :)

See you there!
Kasia :)

Blue prints on raw hemp

I am in love with the way the strong royal blue fabric ink came out on the raw hemp. The designs were once again made from paper cut outs and then screen printed onto the hemp. These are cushions which are currently available for sale in my online shop. Check them out, each one is different. Oh and some prints are purple! Delicious!

A wall hanging for Claudia

I have been very busy lately working on a myriad of fabric prints. I've made cushions, wall hangings, table linens, bags. I've screen printed my doona cover! I will be posting about all my wonderful projects ovr the next week or so. For today here is a wall hanging that I designed and made for Claudia whom I met recently. She is a designer herself and was very keen on my work and requested that I do a wall hanging for her home, on the raw hemp in white. So here it is below as well as the process I use for most of my printing. You may find it useful if you're planning on doing some printing at home.

Cushions and more screen printing

I have had a lovely time making these cushions out of some random pieces of screen printed fabric. I have been printing last week, pretty much anything that took my fancy. Most of the prints are from paper cut-outs. The fabrics are mixed and include: hemp canvass, silk/hemp, cotton, hessian. I am in the process of making lots of cushions, table runners, coasters and more fabric bags for the upcoming Lane Cove Alive Markets on Sunday 19th June 2011 from 9am till 3pm. Please come if you are in the local area.

This one is printed hessian. I like the way it comes out so rough due to the open weave of this textile.

Printing using a paper stencil

Here is how I screen-print my paper cut-outs...

I start with the paper cut-out and make a mask out of brown kraft paper. See where I marked it with the pen?

Then I stick the mask onto the silk screen with stiky tape.



I place the paper cut-out onto the fabric where I want to print it...

... and position the screen with the mask over the paper cut-out.

I print through the mask and voila!

Off to the drying rack :)

More on these table runners next week. I'll be printing more colorus onto them.

paper cut-outs for screen printing

Here are some lovely paper cut-outs I've just done. I am planning on using these as stencils through the silk screen and printing some more hemp with them. This time I'll be using different colours instead of the trusty red :) I'll post about the results soon.

On the washing line...

Here are some more screen prints from last week. Still drying after a wash in the machine. I am not precious about the prints and like the way they come out all roughed up and looking well worn. I have not yet decided what I will make out of these. Possibly some more table linen as that is my excitement at the moment :) ... stand by.

Raw silk on the left and hemp canvass on the right

Screenprinting some table linen

I am very happy screen-printing some table linen at the moment. I made a table cloth for my friend's mum's 75th birthday out of a hemp/silk blend (which is stunning) and was very happy with how it turned out. It's the one with the large red floral print on it in the pics below. To make the pattern I cut stencils out of architectural drafting film and taped them to a blank silk screen then printed through that. It was a bit tricky as I had to wait for each separate segment to dry before I printed another one.

I also made some table runners from raw hemp and another table runner also from the hemp/silk blend with the same floral pattern on it as the table cloth. Except with this one I deliberately didn't heat set it for very long and it gave this lovely washed out look. I like it a lot.

I made some bags!

I got this exciting idea to sew some bags out of lots of pieces of lovely screen printed hemp which i have had for a long time. I made some samples and I will be offering these for sale in my online shop from tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Australian time). They are all made from 100% heavy weight Hemp canvass. (the super textile). There is only one of each in the shop so once it's bought that's it but I will be making some more in the near future. I'm testing these to see how popular they are. I had a lot of fun sewing them that's for sure and I like that they're all different.