New images for spring

Ed working on the new screens for our next collection. Hopefully some of the products will reach the stalls and website this week.

Screen Preparation

We've been sorting out our screen printing screens to make space for some new images.

Putting the images on the screens is a photographic process. Here's Ed looking at our exposure unit where the screens are being exposed. When the time's up they are rushed straight to the bathroom, the unexposed emulsion is rinsed off the screens and the images revealed.

Making Screen Printing Frames

We've bought pre-made Screen printing frames before but find the ones we make ourselves last much longer. The pictures above show Ed adding the mesh to the frames. This is actually a two person job as you have to stretch out the mesh as tightly as possible, but I'm taking the photos here.

The worst thing about the job is putting all the staples in which leads to sore wrists, blood blisters and all sorts of other problems. So we're asking Santa for a Pneumatic Staple Gun.

Print Day, Friday

Once again Friday was spent printing. Earlier in the week we cut the leather then we print invariably on Friday. Ed does the printing and I do the positioning both to print the items and to dry them while Ed prints the next item. When we've tried swapping roles it's always a disaster. I am always subject to Ed's very critical eye as I do his job but less skillfully, similarly I can't help interfering as I find him so slow with the positioning.

Anyway I position the pieces once printed to dry. As we have limited drying space you have to lay the pieces out as efficiently as possible so you tend to end up with a table covered in the same image. They always look so lovely at this stage it almost seems a shame to sew them up.

We love the weekend

Actually we don't love it that much but I thought a 'we hate the weekend' title might be too grumpy. In particular Friday nights are a bit of a drag as we always end up working late. This is what we were up to last night; screen printing. Ed tends to do the printing and I do the running around placing printed items on all spare spaces to dry out.

It wasn't too bad though we were made a glass of mulled wine and had a break watching fireworks. Of particular note were the sparklers, you don't realise quite how much smoke a sparkler gives off until to avoid the rain you light 5 of them in a small marquee.