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can you now guess what I did last night?
all of a sudden, I decided to take my scissors, invible thread and sewing machine out to make Molly’s party garland.

mine is pretty small - around two hundred centimetres long - but was real quick to make. from the initial shape-cutting to the final hanging, only a couple of hours went by.
now two things:
1. I’m in love with chain piecing and invisible thread, although I need to practice.
2. since randomness is my favourite word, I blindly/freely cut out my shapes (triangles and rectangles, only) from a one-metre-long and thirty-centimetre-wide piece of cotton fabric, which I first folded in half (wrong side together).

if you want to see a gorgeous step-by-step, check out Molly’s site.

it got really dark pretty soon in the afternoon today. and as soon as I hit my flat, rain started pouring heavily.

so I put those hours - I had planned to spend outdoors, running - to use by making the wooden cubes I’ll use as bases for the grow your apple tree stamp collection I’ve been thinking about of a lot.

thinking was all I did lately. I’ve had that terrible sensation. you know, those times when you don’t create anything new because you feel like all you make isn’t so lovely. I hate this and will try to overcome it by keeping creating and waiting to see how things turn out.

so far I’m really happy with those little wooden pieces. aren’t they’re cute?
I’m now thinking of creating my very own wooden cube alphabet (*edit* take a sneak peek!)

as mentionned earlier, the late afternoon was spent lino printing. my first time ever. and so far I’ve loved every single second.

I only made some test prints, but will totally make the final one tomorrow, or more accurately, as soon as I’ll have decided on which colour to use. greyish beige?
anyway, I took some pictures of the process; hopefully, you’ll find them useful. consider this as a visual tutorial to lino printing.

ps. the design is copyright fanny zanotti © 2008. do not use without express permission.

you’ll need:
- pencil and permanent marker
- x acto knife
- tracing paper
- lino
- gouges, or lino carving tools
- brayer
- acrylic paint

a. draw what you want to print - either on paper or using Illustrator. make sure it is a simple design, in plain black and white.
black is for what will appear on paper.
white stands for the ‘holes’.

b. transfer your sketch to the lino block using tracing paper.

c. carve out the white spaces, do this very slowly, securing the gouges with both of your hands for maximum safety (for your fingers, but also for the lino). don’t try to go too deep, you’ll be able to do that later if necessary.
just start by outlining the main lines with a fine tool, then carve in the big spaces. I found my 1mm gouges to be the most useful, although the wide and flat 8mm one came in handy to carve the surrounding spaces.
for a 20 x 20cm design, this step took around two hours; but then, I’m a complete beginner.

d. cut out the stamp using an x acto kinfe. do a small incision, then break into two part and slice the fabric base of the lino.

e. ink your stamp. squeeze some acrylic paint onto a glass plate. then using your brayer, roll out the paint into an even layer; more than you would think you need.

f. test your stamp by inverting it onto a sheet of paper and applying pressure (use a barren, or failing that a rolling pin). gently lift the lino block and allow the paper to dry.
as you can see from the couple last pictures, they seem to be some white patches inside the black spaces. this is just due to the very paper being torn apart, and won’t show in the final fine print.

happy with your design? then repeat these two last steps with high-quality paper.