Printing Peacocks

At last.....Ive shut my Etsy shop for a week to re-stock and complete existing custom orders. Its been hard keeping up with orders whilst trying to gradually build up the stock that turns over regularly. I feel like Ive been chasing my tail for a while and my beautiful new wallaper blocks have sat un-printed and patient for months.
So finally today, I printed the Liberty double peacock block. No small feat, this block weighed a ton and my back and arms now ache. I was barely able to lift it alone but determination is an amazing thing.
I modified my printing pad by extending the size and making it larhe enough to take the large block with a simple double fabric padding as a base layer.

 Then to inking the block. I had to work at double speed as I had to sponge the ink on as a consistent layer right across the surface before it started to dry at the first end. As you can see gloves are now essential to prevent my hands being constantly in contact with ink and water and scrubbing it out of my nails frantically as I race out the door for the school run.

 Then manouevering it ontu indigo linen..I confess I simply had to let it drop from a couple of inches above the fabric as I couldnt take the weight of it after lifting it up and over to the pad.

 And after a couple of tester prints...a nice little batch. As you can see five or six imprints is all I could manage before my arms gave out and I conceded defeat. This is one serious heavy weight of a block.

And the prints...

Then I staggered out to the garden to clean the ink off this beauty..much to the utter hilarity of my children who found my shuffling steps and wheezing grunts pure comedy gold as I dragged the block to the patio hose.

So a good twenty minutes of scrubbing and hosing before leaving her to drain and  dry on the table.
Now lets see what I can make with this linen...

And as a real juxtaposition of patterns, here are some kawaii storage hampers I will be listing in my shop once I return from my week long hiatus: These are the finished linocut prints I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.