Yardwork

Yardwork
The byline to Susan Scott’s Etsy shop, Yardwork reads: “Yards and yards of artwork, one foot at a time”. Actually, it’s more like one inch at a time – her process of printing bookcloth (used for binding books) is extraordinarily painstaking. I read through her profile, where she describes the process. It goes something like this:

1. Come up with a design
2. Carve it into a lino block
3. Print onto fabric
4. Highlight elements of the design with wax resist
5. Wait a day for it to dry, then dye
6. Wash to remove wax resist, and dye again
7. Wash to remove residue, and dry.
8. Cook up wheatpaste
9. Stretch fabric on glass
10. Brush on wheatpaste and lay mulberry paper down
11. Dry and remove carefully from glass.
12. At last, a piece of bookcloth.

Jeez, and I think doing my own screenprinting is too much labour! This process is quite extraordinary, and so are the results.

You may be relieved to know that not all of Susan’s work is quite so labour intensive. I love the Bebop print (below), recently digitally printed by Spoonflower, also available in the Yardwork shop.