Today was the last day of my Screen Printing Course. Ordinarily it would be sad at the thought of a course being over, but not this one. Having completed the course I am now able to screen print whenever I want. You can not believe how much joy this is giving me (although if you've been reading my posts on screen printing over the last few weeks, you've probably got a pretty good idea).

I was a little bit nervous about this week's lesson. Remember my disasters of last week? And then everyone was telling me how much harder it is to print on fabric. Printing on fabric is obviously my main raison d'être for screen printing and if I'm having problems before I even get to the fabric stage, what chances do I have of succeeding?

Needless to say, all worries and concerns immediately evaporated as soon as I got going. Maybe it was the anticipation of disaster. Maybe it was the fact that I knew i needed full concentration today. Maybe it was the fact that some of the processes (making screen, printing technique) were becoming a bit more natural, leaving me able to concentrate on today's new aspect.

I'm not going to worry too much about what made it feel right, but enjoy the fact that it did.

I brought with a variety of fabrics to get a feel for how printing worked on the different textures. I wasn't sure I'd make a good print on linen, being causer and less smooth than cotton, but the linen I'm using at the moment is fairly close weaved, so this didn't seem to be as problematic as I'd envisaged.

The shirting worked a treat. It's very smooth and takes the ink beautifully. I'll be using these fabrics quite a bit.

The Klona cottons worked a treat too. I'm going to need to play around with colours however as even thought the pale blue took beautifully on the brown, the pink came out a little bit murky. Whereas on the white the pink was lovely and vivid.

I chose designs today that I could experiment various styles to see how they come out on the fabric. I wanted to play around with the font stamps I have, so included both of those. I also wanted to see how intricate detailing would show.

I think because I had such little expectations today, the results have thrilled me even more. I'm learning what works and what needs changing. I've booked to go in again on Monday and looking forward to playing around and experimenting some more and then, my friends, I'll start to get my mind ordered as to producing pieces that will actually be used.

This is just the beginning...

I went shopping on Fabricrehab last week. I haven't bought from there for quite a while and was pleased to reacquaint myself with it as they have some fab fabrics at the moment.

I think the reason I haven't bought from there for a while is that the fabrics they have tend to be on the bolder side of life, with more primary based colours and these haven't suited my projects of late.

This time however they had just what I was after. As well as picking up some great pieces from the Metro Cafe Collection (will show you my makes from there tomorrow), I bought some of this great Kokka fabric. It's a gorgeous Scandinavian style design with fun flowers and houses. I love the randomness of the design and is full of so many different images.

I really love the green house and the pink flower in the garden below.

The clouds and raindrops (well, that's what I think they are) work really well as a separate pattern too. The colours and geometric style are a great stand alone design.

The same can be said for these 3 little flowers. The attention to detail is like none I have seen before in a fabric of this type. I just love it. There's so much in there.

It's also rare for me to find a fabric that works as well for larger items as it does for smaller ones. It's great to see a spread of the design in a bigger piece...

...as well as using some of the isolated details in a little item.

The colours work really well for me too...girlie enough without feeling too sugary sweet. All in all, I like this fabric. I like it alot. So I think I had better go back online and order more while they've still got some in...