Owly Towel

Sounds like a Fawlty Towers anagram, doesn't it? But in fact, it's what I've been making today!

Thanks to the lovely Craft Guerrilla's expert guidance, I've spent three hours this afternoon carving a design out of lino and then printing it onto a tea towel. I've had so much fun and - as is always the case when I learn a new craft or technique - my mind is now buzzing with possibilities. Let's just say that if you're on my Christmas card list, I'm already thinking up the design you'll be seeing in seven months.

The workshop was at the Knit With Attitude shop at 127 Stoke Newington High Street and there were four of us participating in the workshop including Louise (Crafty Guider) and Jean-Mary (Meanyjar).

As I wrote yesterday, I'd had an idea in mind for a while, of a little owly chap sitting on a branch. When I got to the workshop, I realised that in fact for a repeated design, the owl would be better on its own, without the branch.

So, I started out by drawing my li'l owl onto the lino block.

Owly. HB pencil on lino.

Then I set about carving! It was lots of fun gouging out chunks from the lino. I loved that the different blades of the tool had different influences, not only the shape and weight of the line, but also the direction; I'd intended that the eye sockets would be tooled from the outside edge, inwards, but the blade I was using gave the line a natural curve to the left, so they ended up with a spiral design which I love.

Shavings of lino ended up all over the place; this is not a hobby for those who don't like mess.

Once I'd finished the design, it was time to ink it up and print a trial run on a scrap of fabric. I'm very into teal at the moment, so I decided on a good, strong teal colour, which I used by mixing a lot of blue, with some yellow and white. The 'ink' was actually acrylic paint with some Daler Rowney System 3 Acrylic Medium mixed into it; the ratio was imprecise, but it seemed to be about 10-20% medium to paint. The medium means that the paint doesn't dry quite so quickly as acrylic paint normally would, allowing you more time to work.

No negativity here!

The first trial print helped me to realise that I needed to shave away a little of the material around the design. In fact, in the end I cut it all away, because I wanted a nice clean edge to the design. Once I was happy with the design, it was time to commit to printing my tea towel. I measured the towel and my design and worked out I that I could fit a row of four owls along each short edge of the towel.

Four in a row.

I had great fun creating my owly towel and it was inspiring to see the designs my fellow workshoppers came up with.

From left to right, Craft Guerrilla, Alison, me, Crafty Guider and Meanyjar.