Future Rococo Circuits

Get ready for a pic-heavy post! This week I printed fabric for my future rococo dress. I thought about what types of images people would be into in the future, so I thought that computers seemed futuristic and fun. Again, I know that they'll most likely be outdated by the time this outfit would roll around, but so are cogs and everybody likes steampunk.... 

First! The design. I drew this by hand... Pretty bad I know. But that's why photoshop is awesome!

Just make some fancy grids and get time-saving tips from people who actually understand the program... 

Success! Get photo emulsion and pigment at the store! But DON'T forget the tiny sensitizer bottle if you get this kind because it's necessary and you'll have to go back!

I made the pattern repeated a bit so it would tesselate. Then I printed it to the right size and my friend put baby oil on the paper to make it transparent. Then we put it on the screen which we had photo emulsion on it, that we had put on the day before.

Then we used this magical machine... There were buttons and some sort of suction and a spin-y thingy. 

Soon the dye lab became Frankenstein's lab, since we had to expose the screen. We did that for one minute since the lines were so thin. 

Insert witty Frankenstein joke here.

Running it under cold water and hitting it with a toothbrush...

And voila! A screen drying in the sun.  :)

Here's the first test of the silkscreen and it worked great!

So I measured and pinned threads so I could line up the pattern to tesselate and look continuous... Well worth it, but very time consuming.

It works! Huzzah! 

And this is why I was at school from basically 2:00 pm until midnight Friday night.

I was very tired the next morning and I really didn't want to get up to work and do yesterday all over again. It was partially this guy's fault, as he decided my legs were the perfect place to sleep.

And back Saturday morning to do it all over again! Ngan is my witness, it still took forever to line up the threads again, even though I had marked where to the put them on Friday. I wasn't even dawdling!

Break for lunch! Ngan and I went to Windsor Button to pick up some yarn, (all on sale! Last day today) and then to Chinatown to pick up some lunch. We both got "big buns" and they were so big and cheap and delicious! They're something like steamed pork buns. I Also got a little rice dessert thing, which was fun too. 

Here's a bit of the final pattern! So exciting!

I printed A LOT. It's just under six yards by sixty inches, and I hope that's enough for my project because I'm not going through this whole process again!

But it was definitely worth it.

Yay!

I'm really glad I did this. It was wicked fun! I came to MassArt to become a fibers major because I had such fun sewing and dyeing and silkscreening. When I got here I decided I didn't like it, but I can't really tell you why. That was silly of me and I'd totally do this again, and soon! I guess I do know why, since I know myself. Part of it is that I'm not a huge fan of designing, I'd rather just go! go! go! and do. Also, I'm not so great with the patience sometimes. 

But anyways, I very much enjoyed this and soon you should be seeing a dress made out of this!