#22

I mentioned in my last post that one of the things that drew me to Lotta Jansdotter's book about printing was my own love of potato prints. I actually use a variety of vegetables for printing including carrots, celery (only way I'll get near the stuff, yuck!) and peppers. But potatoes are my favorite. All those other veggies produce a particular shape and that's what you print. Potatoes, however, can be carved and that makes them extra special. You can even impress a cookie cutter shape into a potato and then stamp that pattern onto fabric. In the past, I've used potato stamps to create stand alone patterns.


But lately I've experimented with layering patterns made with potato stamps and patterns made with other techniques.

This is the first stage with one pattern created from a carved potato and one color. I've also taken out any wax I laid down in stamping the initial pattern.


At this point I added more patterning; this time I used a different technique by drawing directly on the fabric with a traditional tjanting tool.

I love the depth that layering these techniques creates. The other day I made some yardage using these same methods, but in shades of blue. I'm thinking summer top for that piece.