Garden Bags

I made this series of garden bags for my Printmaking class last semester. We were supposed to make a line of functional objects with screen printed fabric. I decided to make bags that can be used in the garden, mostly for transporting seeds and tools from the house or shed to the garden. My inspiration came from these images from a vintage "how-to" book on drawing birds.


My parents have 2 or 3 bird feeders in the backyard so we always have lots of birds hanging around. I felt the bird was a perfect motif for this series.
I came up with the pattern, shot it on my screen and printed it onto a nice cotton canvas. We also had to use the digital printer for half of the project. I manipulated my image on Photoshop and added colour. Then it gets printed out on the printer (sort of like the printer you have at home for your computer except that its HUGE and prints on fabric instead of paper). Then you have to steam the fabric for about an hour to fix the dye (that way you can wash it and not lose your image). I wanted a third fabric so I dyed some white cotton with Tetley tea, the result is a lovely mottled caramel colour.

When all that was done I sat down in front of my sewing machine and began to make! Here is the result:

All four bags!

The digitally printed lining

Tea-dyed cotton lining