Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Mon nouveau mouchoir*

My recent** obsession with hankies continues...

The news that we had to create a two colour screen print on fabric for Monday night class last week meant only one thing for me: the ability to try out some handkerchief designs that had driven me out of bed and to my visual diary in the early hours of the morning a month or so back.

Classmate Chris called me a "percolator" but maybe we should change that to a "drip filter" as this idea kind of started taking root during my trip back to Wellington last year where I saw a hankie for sale printed with the phrase "I'm not a tissue". I would have bought it on the spot but it was a bit expensive.

When I returned home I thought of trying to print similar using my printer or Spoonflower but ended up forgetting all about it. Until a classmate started turning up in class with her "I'm not a plastic bag" tote, which the hankie had been based on.

And I came up with some bad puns to use on a range of eco hankies. In the middle of the night. As you do.


The first colour print: custom mixed by me and given personality by the fact I got a little carried away screening the print and accidentally chopped off some of the top right splatter. Then the print got a little distressed on the way home from class where someone cut me off and the (still damp) print fell off the passenger's seat...

Last night I added the second colour. Here's the screen all ready to go: Ink added:And, in a movement similar to this (these are my neighbours as both Tania and I had our hands full at this stage of my print)this was created:My lettering's a little wonky as it was my first time cutting letters (and I should have had more of a gap between "Achoo" and "se") This hanky is particularly eco-friendly as I printed it on an old 50 cent op shop cot sheet. To make it totally eco-friendly I should hand sew the edges using an op shop needle and op shop thread. But bugger that: I'll be doing it on the machines as soon as I get around to changing the overlocker thread to white.

And if you're interested in what the other designs said:

I have issues with tissues (an in-joke regarding some really bad Vince Jones lyrics)
I refuse to sneeze on trees
Using tissues is snot very green
Goodness nose hankies are greener than tissues


(But they all had more letters in them and so I decided to go with Achoo se...)

(*My new handkerchief)
(** Who am I kidding? I've been obsessed with the hunting down of black and white hankies for over a decade...)

2 comments :

Eilleen said...

oh oh I love it! I really love the slogans you are using.

I have always been obsessed with hankies - I buy them whenever I see some at the op shops. My goal is to have enough hankies for every room in the house... this also feeds into my other obsession of finding wooden or tin boxes to house said hankies in.

Cherry ・ チェリー ・ 체리  said...

nah I still think the hankees look awesome! I like the slogans, they're cool. And hehe "Im not a tissue" "I'm not a bag" cute.

Ehhh... Im a tissue user. I used to use hankees but my nose has always been mucked up, even the medication for it doesn't help. I went through so many hankees it was gross. More hygenic for me to use packets of tissues (where you don't have to soak your pocket) but I'm trying to be green aside that!