BPO: Bundling Up

Service Description

Bundling up In this part we will start with making some simple bundles to understand the bundling techniques and how mordants influence our print results. We work with small strips of fabrics on purpose, to be mindful of materials. We create these samples for our little library of fabrics, for you to use as a reference in the future. What do we need? In the previous part, we mordanted three pieces of fabric, one meter each, with alum, ferrous sulfate and copper sulfate. Fabric Cut each meter of fabric in five pieces of 20 cm each. Length will vary obviously according to the width of the fabric. It should be anywhere between 90 cm and 1.20. ​Take two pieces of 20 cm wide from each fabric. ​So we now have 6 strips in total. Pre-wet the previously mordanted strips in cold water plenty of time ahead, or store them still moist for a few days in the fridge. Something to separate the layers Barrier material such as paper sheets, or reusable plastic.​ Something to roll on You will need 6 wooden dowels, or heat resistant pvc pipe of at least 25 cm wide. I cut my own broomsticks that I get for cheap into lengths of 40 cm, which fits my chafing dish perfectly. Something to tie. Sturdy rope, not too thick, but strong enough for strong pulling Sticks, dowels, pvc pipes.... Technically speaking, you could bundle without any assistance of wood or pvc, but it is much easier to use an aid. I cheaply buy wooden broom sticks and cut them in the longest possible length that will still fit my pan. Pvc pipes: the same. Make sure your pipe is heat resistant! You can differentiate cold and hot water pipes by the blue (cold) and yellow (hot) lines on the pipe. Pvc pipes may have some printed texts on them. Remove these before use with some sandpaper or it will transfer to your fabric. Almost everyone I know in the field has made this mistake once. Sticks from the field. Cute. Not very practical for tight rolling. Bamboo: also cute, and cheap. Splinters are a pain and they split after a few uses. About Barriers If you simply roll a mordanted fabric and leaves, the leaves will print through the different layers creating 'echo's' of leaves across the fabric which gives a muddy appearance. Using a barrier avoids seeping pigments in your bundle. Some people use single use plastic foil or cling wrap to create a barrier, I want to highly discourage you from doing this. I see no justification in trawling away two yards of single use plastic for each scarf you are making.