"SCANDINAVIAN STYLE" ... SILK SCREENED WALL ART

This post will be very detailed in written discription, and pictures because it is part of my last assignment for school.

It's hard to believe but this is my last school project that I will do in my two years of study as a " artisan" at Gradia School. I thought long and hard on what I wanted to do for this final project.

When I couldn't come up with idea's I then asked around for idea's from my friends and family.  Our  son and his wife volunteered and asked if I could make them three pictures for their new home .. they wanted these pictures for their living room wall. 

Now that I had a customer, we had to decide what style they were looking at. After many many emails, and sending pictures collected off the internet I finally had a good idea of what they were looking for. The style they most liked was  " scandinavian folk art", as our son was finnish this only made sense. 

They sent me three pictures that they liked, and I went about redesigning these. I sent them four sample pictures for each picture. Once they chose the sample picture, we had to decided what technique they wanted these to be made in. They chose the Silk Screening process.  I had done this technique at school  but I had not used any colour other than black. So this was going to be a challenge for me. When using colours you have to have different screens for each colour design.

This is a drawn copy of the original picture that they chose. 

Flower # 1

 This is the drawn picture of the next print they decided they liked.

Picture # 2

This is the last picture that they chose to be in their collection of fabric printed pictures.

Flower # 3

Now that I had an good idea of what the design is going to be like, I now have to go about changing and modifying the pictures to be more into the  " scandinavian folk art" design.

I made  four pictures for each of the three flowers they had chosen. After I had made all these pictures for them to chose from they finally chose the three pictures which they wanted me to make the Silk Screen Art pictures from.

In the picture to your right you can see the picture that they chose. They had chose the picture on the top of the picture, but in my mind it still was not the " scandinavian style that I wanted for them". I submitted the bottom picture to them, and they absolutely loved it. 

In this next picture, they chose the picture one the top of the left hand photo. Once again, I asked if I could make the picture more " scandinavian". They loved the bottom picture that I showed them.

In the right hand top picture you can see the design that they chose. I again changed it to be more in line to the "scandinavian folk art" style. ( which is called "seamless vector pattern" ). They were very pleased and happy with the changes I had made.

Here is another screen prepared for my next picture. 

There are many steps involved in making and planning the pictures, here are but a few of the steps.

If you look closely you can see that my picture of the flower is on three different stations of the carousel.

At this station of the carousel I am applying top paint. It is the black paint that defines the flower.

 

 

 

 

Here are first three final print pictures that I printed on my chosen fabric. I will have to chose the best one of the three.

After my print is finished printing, it needs to be heat treated to seal in the paints. At school we have a huge drying machine which we call the " drying tunnel". Here I am feeding my pictures in the tunnel, the temperature of heat is set at 350C and the fabrics go through 3 times.

In the picture above. The three pictures are completed. I sent these pictures to the customer to finalize and okay. The customer was very happy with the final draft of these.

Here is the completed the first print. I have ironed an interfacing on the back of it to make the fabric stronger, and stays flat. These will be shipped overseas laid flat in a package. ( Unfortunately I cannot frame them here in Finland.)

Print #2a is now completed. A interfacing has also been iron on the back of this picture.

Completed picture #2b . Ironed and interfaced.

Finally # 3 print is completed. Ironed and interfaced. 

I am so very happy with how this set of three printed pictures turned out. 

These three prints will be packaged and sent overseas for my customer to matte and frame. 

Now that this process is done, I am going to have some fun and try different pattern techniques with the designs I made.

To the right you can see that I used a repeated pattern technique for the pillow covers that I am going to send as an gift for my customer. I really like the way these turned out. I have sent pictures of these to my customer and she absolutely LOVED them. 

Here is the pattern repeated on the blue upholstery fabric. this pillow size will be 50cm x 50cm

Here is the pattern combination on the blue denim fabric.

This one is my very favorite picture. I am in love with the yellow and black print on this pillow. I wish I could keep it.

 

Then the fun job of making the pillows. Here you can see the pile I had stacked up of pillows to sew or have been sewed. 

The sewed and stuffed pillows are now displayed on our couch. The customer was absolutely thrilled when I sent her pictures of these. She loved them.

I also made a smaller neck rest pillow from leftover fabric print.

This pillow to your right is one of my sample pieces on sheet material. It looked so good, that I decided to make a pillow for myself out of this one.

This is the reverse side of the white pillow from the above picture. These are the sample prints that I have used. I still love the pattern and colour, so I decided that it was good enough for me.

I found more sample pieces in my piles of work, so I decided to make a tote bag with the design on it. You always need tote bags. I think it turned out great. 

Above are my four silk screen printed and framed " scandinavian Folk art " pictures. 

 

With this done, I have completed my final project for my school. It has been an interesting journey. I have cried, I have raged, I have rejoiced, I have laughed.  I have met and made wonderful new friends that will last a lifetime. I have grown in confidence as a "Artisan". I have tried many new and wonderful crafts that I would love to pursue in the future.

Where will this all take me?  Only God know.... but no matter where it is, I know that I will be more knowledgeable, and confident in my work and in myself. 

Please keep following me on this blog... I will be continue posting on what is going on in my life, and where all my schooling has taken me.

KNITTING PROJECTS

 

During the past two years while I have been in " artisan school" I have also had alot of craft projects that I have done in the evenings. The truth is that I am kinda addicted to crafts. I always need to have some craft project in the works.  You would think that after working all day on crafts at school, I would be glad and relieved to just enjoy the evening and relax. 

 At any rate here a few pictures of the " home crafts that I have done during the past two years".

The Moomi hat and mitts I knit for my great nephew.This particular pattern I have wanted to knit for sometime, but never had anyone to knit it for. It was a fun and easy pattern to knit, andk I hope to have the opportunity to knit it again.   

The beautiful fireplace scene was taken by a family member. These socks I knitted for them all and sent to them for a Christmas gift one year.

The pattern in the mittens to the left where a bit of a challenge, but I enjoy challenges. These mittens I gave to a friend.

These red "Dala Mittens" where something that I had admired and always wanted to knit.. Last winter I decided I had enough of my admiring and decided that now was the time to pick up my needles and knit these beautiful mittens. The meaning of Dalahäst means Dala horse.

 

I love these mittens. I couldn't wait to wear them. The first day I wore them I was sitting on the bus when a woman who was sitting across from me said to me " I love your mittens".. Boy did I beam..  Next winter I am going to make matching wool socks, hey and maybe a hat too.. 

p.s. I know that this is a Swedish design, and I am finnish, I still love these mittens.  

p.s.s. in the past finns and sweds have not gotten along.

 

 Every fall I message my children in Canada to ask if they need socks or mittens knit for the coming winter, and more often than not, I get a list of family members who want my knitted socks. 

These socks for my son and his wife. I loved knitting these socks, it was a new pattern that I was trying out. The pattern with the birds is called Kanteletar and the designer is Tiina Kuu the other ones are by the same designer and are called Echoes of Karjala.

 

 

These socks were knit for my husbands nephew.

 

 

These socks are made from wools that I dyed at school. I also tried a whole bunch of different knitting techniques on them.

 

On of our friends had a little baby girl, so I knit her a little hat and socks. the pattern on the socks are a " marimekko" pattern. 

 

 l found this " santa pattern" many years ago, and fell in love with immediately. I put it into my file of must try, but didn't knit it until our grandson was around 3-4 years old. He was so excited to get these socks, he just loved the elves on the socks. 

This has become a sock pattern that I have knit now for many a child... I have probably knit this particular pattern around 8 times. It's a great "stocking stuffer" gift.

 

 

I am not a pink person, but have had to buy pink wool for knitting projects for little girls. So, I decided to try to use up all the different pinks I had.  In these socks I combined  pinks, orange, and grey.

 

As I have stated earlier I get antsy when I have nothing to do. One evening when I was looking for a project, I looked through me knitting basket, and found that I had a lot of little wool " its and bits" that you couldn't really use in any large projects, so I decided to knit a small pair of socks..  Our youngest son's wife is going to be having a little girl. I wasn't sure if they would like the colourful socks, but they loved them.

 

I have been racking my brain to think who did I knit these socks for, and I cannot for the life of me remember, but these socks are a pair of many many socks that I have knit.

I like the knitted technique I used on the cuff of the socks. 

 

As you can see here are some of those " Santa's elves" socks that I wrote about earlier. 

These socks are gifts for the our neighbours little girls. Every Christmas I make something for all the little children in our apartment block.

 

These little socks are going abroad. My niece had a little girl.I wanted something very simple and elegant, because that is the what my niece is. These are knit specifically for the Christmas season. White socks and snowflakes.

 I haven't knit to many cable knit sweaters for awhile, so I decided to start small and work my way up to adult sizes again. 

The two pictures here are of a sweater I knit for my coming grand daughter. I know its to big right now, but she will grow into it. 

I did not knit a button opening around the neck like so many children's patterns have. I intentionally knit the collar quite big, so there would not be a struggle for her little head to fit through.

 

This dress is made for my niece's daughter. I have not knit a dress pattern since I knit my sisters " wedding dress" around 35 years ago. I looked for a long time to find a simple pattern. My niece likes simple yet elegant. 

It was also challenging because I could not try on the dress as I knit it, I just had to go by the size chart for toddlers that I found on the internet. This is a picture of the back of the dress.

Here is the front view of the dress. It was a fun and easy dress to make.

My niece sent me pictures recently with the dress on her daughter. It's a bit big, but that is perfect it will fit her perfectly this fall. 

This project once again started with me having nothing to do in the evenings, so I went through my knitting basket, and found more of those small balls of leftover wool from previous projects. I had enough wool to make this sweater. 

This sweater is for our grand daughter. She has not been born yet, but anytime now. This is gonna be large for her, but she will grow into it.

This is a picture of the back of the sweater. The wool used here, is remnants of wool that I dyed in school. Its a multi coloured sweater.

 

 

 

One Christmas I was racking by brains for what to knit for our neighbours children for Christmas. I was scanning through Pinterest and saw a lot of the little knitted rabbit dolls. I decided that our neighbours daughter would love playing with this.

 

I had so much fun knitting these dolls. I kept coming up with different outfits to dress them in. I really should have made myself one of these dolls. 

 Here is a collection of cloths I made for the rabbit. 

As I wrote earlier I made a few of these rabbits, so with each rabbit the cloths were different.

I had so much fun making these cloths. 

The great thing is we have a grand daughter coming, so guess who is going to get a rabbit made for her.

 

In this blog I am lumping together all the different crafts I have done while going to school.

One christmas I made all the neighbour children "christmas Elves". With their names embroidered on them.

 Here is a neck warmer I made from dyed wool I made at school. 

This pattern matches the socks I had knit from the dyed wool.

 

 

 

This is a closeup picture of the hat I knit for a friends baby.

 

 

Another one of my restless night projects. I seem to have alot of these kind of projects. 

 Little newbe's hat. Hopefully it will fit the newborn baby.

 

I saw this pillow design online, and thought to myself that maybe I will try to knit it.  

The original pillow was wider, but I was running out of wool, so I decided that this size would be fine. 

It turned out excellent. I absolutely love this pillow. I will definitely knit more pillows.

 

 

 This is a advent calendar I made a few years ago, I knitted all the different pockets. I gave this calendar away to my sister in law.

 These socks look a lot bigger than what they really are. They are meant for a 1-2 year old. I knit the top part of the sock using a Latvian braid.. I love using this technique in my knitting, but unfortunately it also has a tendency to not give the sock the stretch that it normally has without the braid. 

The true colour of these socks are grey-green.