New American Made Brand Fabrics

I recently had the pleasure to play with some new fabric by American Made Brand. This line of fabric is a gorgeous quality, solid colored line that is grown and made right in the USA. It can't get better than that!

There are three new fabrics coming out and they are perfect for all that I do. But then again, the solid colors they offer are perfect too, because they are the ones that I screen print my own designs onto. But, if you happen to be a dyer and printer and want something that is ready to design with, then you will like the new offerings.

The three new fabrics are:

1. AMB PFP cotton is fabric Prepared for Printing.  Fabric is free of finishing and treated in a way to let inks immerse the fibers in color during the printing process.  For the tech-savvy artist wanting to transform their digital creations into fabric works of art!
2. AMB PFD cotton is fabric Prepared for Dyeing.  No starches, sizing, or finishes applied to the fabric, allowing dyes and paints to saturate the fibers.  Perfect for dyeing, batiking, fabric painting, block printing, and all types of textile art media.  Let this fabric serve as a blank canvas to unleash your inner Picasso!
3. AMB Natural Muslin

Here is what I did with my piece of PFD cotton. 

I first dyed the PFD cotton with an orange fiber reactive dye. The color came out brilliant and gorgeous. Next I used textile paint to add some stenciled leaves to the surface. 

I decided to split my piece of PFP fabric in two so I could print two designs on it. For the first design shown, I used one of my Thermofax screen designs, another leaf design, and screened an avocado green color over the surface.

For the other piece of PFP fabric, I used one of my compressed sponge shapes. Yes, another leaf design (I must have been in a leafy mood). I sponged on textile paint in a teal color.

And for the final fabric, the natural muslin, I again used a Thermofax screen to create a fabric that has a stripe pattern.

Once the four pieces of fabric were finished I pulled some of my other printed AMB fabrics from my stash and created a small collection.

This collection called to me to make something so I decided to create a small quilt. I made an improv quilt block with a wonky plus design and then repeated the same block in a smaller size for the border.

I am very impressed that AMB has added these new fabrics to their line. I love using the AMB solids with my screen printing and now I can add these new fabrics to my stash so I can have an even larger variety of options when I want to create unique and original fabrics for my projects.

If you would like to see more of these fabrics and other AMB solids that are available, please visit:

American Made Brand fabrics is found on the web here, http://americanmadebrand.com/.

American Made Brand fabric is a division of Clothworks, http://www.clothworks.com. 

As always, thanks for stopping by and visiting. Please leave a comment if you have any questions.

Repeat Printing with Thermofax Screens

Hello! I want to invite you over to The Printed Fabric Bee blog for the entire month of October. I am sharing a series of posts on how I repeat print with screen printing, mainly Thermofax screens.

You will learn my process on creating some printed yardage like the piece in the photo above.

Click here to visit The Printed Fabric Bee.

My Own Fabric Line

For a long while now I've had a dream to see my designs on fabric for quilting/sewing. I recently had an eye opening jolt after seeing a designer from overseas doing something that I can actually do (but never thought of)...and she is very successful at it. That designer is Karen Lewis and she has a wonderful line of screen printed designs that she has created. You can see her site here.

So over the past few weeks I've been researching and planning and executing my plans. I've created several screens using my Thermofax machine and here are my first couple of printing tests. 

These fabrics are hand dyed by me and while I will offer screened designs on hand dyed fabrics, I also plan to use commercial solid fabrics with my designs screened on them as well.

Below is my new set up for screen printing larger fabric pieces. My husband helped me create a padded board and t-square so that I can easily set up for repeat printing. I used it for the first time this morning and am thrilled with how well it worked.

My studio space has become too small for me over the years as I've developed my likes in what I love doing. It gets a bit crowded in the room with this screen printing table set up...so I take it down and set it up when I need it.  Another goal/plan I have is to move part of my sewing space into an unused room in my house (living room). We never ever use that room, so I plan to sell some of my furniture and turn it into my sewing space and then use my current space for my printing/painting work. It's a plan that may take a few months or more to actually execute, but I look forward to it.

I am very excited to start creating more screen printed fabrics and hope to have them available soon in my Etsy shop.

Another fabric item I plan to add to my Etsy shop are my hand dyed batiks. I'm having so much fun playing with this technique. I recently learned how to use batik wax, which is different from soy wax. I much prefer the batik wax as I found the soy wax much too slimy and hard to remove the final traces of it.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope my hand printed/hand batik fabrics are appealing to you.

New Thermofax Designs

In the previous post, did you notice the owl, flowers, and dog images on the notebook covers? Well those are three of several new Thermofax screen designs that I added to my Etsy shop. You can see all of my Thermofax designs here: CLICK NOW

My New Favorite Thing

I have found a new toy and I am in love with it. It is Jacquard Color Magnet.

This product is used with fabric dyeing and has been available for some time now but for some reason I just hadn't been inclined to try it. Well better late than never and now that I have I am totally hooked. The first jar I bought was gone in no time. 

For my Color Magnet trials I used both Thermofax screens and stencils. The first piece of fabric was my first trial and I mixed my dye slightly too dark, but I still love the result. It is much easier to see the results of this one in person.

What I don't love about this product is -- it is slightly too runny. I wish it was just a bit thicker right out of the jar. Also, there is only one size available. Yes, I want to buy a gallon, please!

Have you tried Color Magnet?