Fern Baskets are here!

Hello again! I’ve just launched my fern baskets into the world so I thought I’d give you a little look into how I make the fern fabric that they are sewn with……..

I’m a pencil and paper kinda gal……and in this case glue too! I drew all the ferns separately, cut them out so I could play around with the placement and then stuck them down to get the final layout. This is the longest screen I’ve made (at 16.5” x 7.5”) and is the first time I’ve designed the entire way around a product rather than block repeating a design.

My fern paper pencil drawing once I’ve played around with the layout.

I make my own screen frames (well……when I say me I really mean my patient husband), that way I can have my screens exactly the right size for the design that I’m going to be printing! After stapling the mesh onto the frame (a process that would be much easier if I had 10 pairs of hands) I can trace my paper drawing onto the screen.

I trace my paper drawing onto the screen.

It’s at this stage I need to decide which bits of the design are going to be painted and which bits are going to be left white. I make my screens by painting screen filler on all the bits that I don’t want paint to get through (so in my case the bits that are going to stay white). I find it a very satisfying process…..not the speediest but I love the look that my painted screens give.

My finished screen. I’ve painted screen filler onto all the areas I want to keep white.

And then the fun part………get printing! I put a good amount of paint onto the side of the screen and then drag this across the screen with my squeegee. This will make the paint pass through the screen onto the fabric below. Knowing how much pressure to use and whether to pull across just once or repeat takes a few goes and is different for every screen. My favourite moment is lifting that screen after the first print to see what’s happened under there.

Me pulling paint across my screen with my squeegee.

Once the fabric has dried the paint needs to be heat set so that you can wash it. I do this by ironing it before I sew it up into a basket.

Here I’m sewing the top stitching around the top of the basket.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about how I make my fern fabric. The baskets are now in my shop available in 2 shades of green (forest and grass) - you can find them here:

A finished fern basket being used as a pot cover.

Until next time,

Liz x