Hand Printed Waves

I made another of these hand printed pouches (now in the shop). This ancient asian motif is one of my favourite patterns. It represents oceans and waves and is a really good one to print - it’s a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

block printed nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Swapsies

'Journey' by Nicky Linzey

A (very long) while ago Nicky sent me a print of some of her work for no other reason than I'd said that it was beautiful. I'd been meaning to send something nice her way for ages as a thank you and just before Christmas I sent her the pouch below. I still look at the swallow print everyday and I still love it, thanks Nicky!

Handprinted pencil case and gift tags (photo by Nicky)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

block printed nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Printing and Wrapping

Hand printing and wrapping custom made cloth for the shop!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

block printed nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Spring Printing, Making

Hello! Are you having a good spring? I think March is my favourite month - starting cold and drizzly but with promising snippets of the good weather to come.

Here's what I've been working on the last few weeks:

Pines & Cranes on cotton fabric; Blackbird, Silver Birch Pouch; Mountains Travel Wallet; Denim back to the blackbird pouch.

I love the brilliant colours and detail you can get printed onto fabric digitally and the way the new Mediterranean landscape pouch has worked out is great (more of these soon)! Also pictured is the blackbird drawing you can see on this blog's banner ^up there^ printed onto cotton twill. With the denim back, it makes a really sturdy and tactile little bag.

I've also been experimenting with paints and methods for block printing on linen and cotton. I love the immediate results and great texture of hand printed fabric:

Hand made, hand printed drawstring bag; colours for spring; Two for Joy block printing and finished zipped bag.

To find out more about these images, visit the Forest & Sea Instagram or Etsy page.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

~[tagged]

... and the last Instagram round up: ~[tags] These are good fun to make - as you can tell :)

Gift Tag | Wrap

Sunflowers with leaves | & without

Paisley | Birds

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

♫ Tweet ♫

More Instagram posts! Just click on the title under each image if you're interested to read more:

Bird Carving | First Impression

Patchy Prints | Black + Gold

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Ink!

Hello! To catch up here with some of the projects I've been working on over the last few months, here are some photos from my Instagram page. Just click on the title below each picture and it'll take you straight to the post if you'd like to read more about it :)

Tea Bags | Family Cards

Rubber Stamp | Paisley Linen

Medieval Woodcut INK! | Wash Bag

Handmade Handles | Birds & Bees

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Cava-ing

Cava / champagne corks are one of the things I have trouble throwing away if we've been celebrating - they just seem too well made to be disposable packaging and the hoarder in me always thinks that there must be a good use for it. This one, from our New Year's celebrations, escaped the bin and got used for some carving; also known as cava-ing :D

Planning and cava-ing!

Printed cotton and the final zip case!

I really enjoyed this project - a great excuse to be keeping Cava corks in the future! What do you find difficult to chuck?

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

@forest_and_sea

From Instagram (clockwise):
~ a greeting card in watercolour
~ one of the pencil sketches for the Arabica Cherry pattern
~ block printed cotton
~ autumn leaves in the park
~ Benny's paw (and some Nilofar on denim)
~ working out the repeat for Palace Garden

I've been posting regularly over at Instagram and I've met some amazing people over there! If you're interested, come and say hi - my user name is @forest_and_sea

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Nilofar

I'm getting better with the sewing machine and it feels really good to learn something new. I thought the panels I printed recently went great with this old denim and so used them to make a toiletries bag:

I was also testing out an idea for some snap wallets this week; the second turned out better than the first but it was very satisfying figuring out a good pattern:

I've made a digital version of this print if you'd like to try it. It's called Nilofar, which means lotus or waterlily and it's available HERE on all sorts of fabric, decal and wallpaper!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Block Printing

I've been finding time to expand on my first attempt at block printing. I like the simple repeat I got with the asian-esque sort of flower but I also wanted to try it out with an extra element:

This block is even smaller than the first - less than 2cm - teeny weeny!

Now to make something good with these panels :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Linocuts

I've been wanting to try block carving and printing for a long time. Here is my first attempt, and a couple of images of that attempt printed onto cotton:

In the process of cutting my first small block - it's a bit less than 3 cm (about an inch)

A lot more lino than I thought needs to be taken away for a clear print on fabric.

A close up of the first repeat print in red..

.. and a repeat in blue.

I'm looking forward to trying my hand at a lot more of this :) I hope everyone had a good bank holiday weekend!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware