Making & Creating

Let’s Add Something Pretty to My Apron | Slow Crafting Goodness

Dear Homemaker Extraordinaire,

Aprons. They are great. Something makes me feel like I really know what I’m doing when I’m working in my apron. I have a few, one for cooking, one for art and creative projects, and one for pottery. And since I do creative things in my aprons I feel like they should at least somewhat look the part.

My cooking apron is a basic black canvas apron that I’ve wanted to give a little attention to for quite a while now. Why? Really, that’s an unanswerable question. Sometimes creating needs to be simply for the sake of creating – not making it more functional, just purely for the love of making itself.

You can see the full project here or follow along below.

I have a little history with carving blocks for printing. I stumbled upon it several years ago (oh my goodness, 10 years, it’s been 10 years!) and knew it was something I needed to have in my life.

Carving is such a soothing process for me and the sculptural reveal scratches an itch I didn’t know I had until I tried it. When I think of a project to incorporate the calming process of carving my own blocks, I jump on it.

I sketched up a crude design and started on the blocks.

To carve your own blocks you’ll need a couple of things:

Block material

Carving tool or tools

Craft knife

Pencil & Paper

The process is pretty straight forward and there is no limit to the designs you can create.

To see making blocks for printing in action check out the first part of the video above. Here’s a quick run through of my process:

Sketch design on standard paper
Go over it with a heavy graphite pencil
Apply the sketch facedown onto the carving block
Use a smooth rock or back of a spoon to transfer the image by rubbing
Carve, trim, and test the block

I’ve also added the supplies I use to my Resources, Tools, & Supplies page if you’re interested.

After I carved the leaves, but before printing I sketched out a loose design on the apron just to give me a rough guide as to where I will print the leaves.

Printing is so exciting and a little scary. If you watch the whole video of this project you will see that the first color I mixed for the leaves wasn’t quite light enough for me. I wanted there to be a bit more of a contrast between the ink and apron. Just adding a little white was all I needed to achieve that.

You don’t need to mix your colors but know that it is an option.

I found that always doing a practice print immediately before printing helps to build up a little residual ink on the block which makes for a more unblemished print. It also allows you to see if there are any areas that need to be cut back in order to create the cleanest image.

The style of prints you like to make can vary. Some people want the crispest, cleanest image with no evidence of cuts made in the carving and others like to see the cut marks in the negative space. Here’s an example of each…

The image on the left is a journal I made a few years ago. As you can see, I didn’t leave any carving marks around the eucalyptus.

The image on the right is Poppies Lino Cut by Elizabeth Fraser (fraserartstudio.com/product/poppies-lino-cut/). In this piece she left carving marks in the negative space which can add interest and speak to them being hand carved prints.

To see my printing process watch my video (I have it time stamped so you can easily find the section you want to see) and visit the Resources, Tools, & Supplies page for the inks and supplies I use for printing.

In the video above I also show how I quickly carved a circle block for the flower heads. I took one piece of carving material, cut a circle, printed it, and then cut it down a little smaller for the next circle.

I thought about painting the circles but decided against it for 2 reasons. One is that I wanted all the color added to the apron to have the same effect. Painting would give a different effect. And two, the ink would go on too thick with a paint brush, I think. Rolling it with the soft brayer allows for a nice consistent thin coat of ink to be placed on the fabric. And bonus, a chance to carve a bit more.

About a week of drying time was needed here before I could move on to the next step of my design.

Next came the embroidery. I enjoy combining different mediums when creating and the embroidery adds texture and layers- 2 things that I strive for when creating, even in uncomplicated designs.

To outline the leaves and create the stems I used a couching stitch. The main color was green and for the tacking stitch I used a darker green.

The couching stitch is basically using 2 pieces of floss. The main color outlines and the 2nd color tacks the main piece down. There are a variety of ways to do a couching stitch but I just stuck with the basics here.

For the flower details I used a light fleshy pink with a chain stitch and French knots in a darker pink for the tips.

The chain stitch starts with coming up through the back, leaving a tail, and then going back down through the same hole. Before you pull the thread all the way back through you will come up again through the back at the start of your next stitch. Put the needle through the loop left from the first stitch and then pull to complete the first chain. You continue on making loops and threading through the loop to make the chains. The last chain will be tacked down without creating another loop.

The French knots are one of my favorite stitches. I varied the number of loops made so that the knot was a little bit smaller on the shorter lines of the flowerhead than the longer lines. A French knot is a little harder for me to put into words but here goes…

Bring thread up from underneath the fabric where you want the knot to go. You can either make a knot on the backside of the fabric or leave a tail to tie it up later.

With the thread to the left and the needle in your right hand (if you’re right handed) wrap the thread around the needle 2-3 times depending on the size knot you want to make. Keep the thread tight around the needle and then insert the needle almost exactly where it entered. Keep the thread pulled to the side until the needle is pulled all the way back through.

To see the French Knot in action look for the time stamp in the project video.

To finish I added a touch of Fray Check (see the resource page if you want to see what kind I use) to my knots to make sure they wouldn’t come undone.