Sun Prints on Fabric

Before the summer is gone, I’ve really got to try some sun printing (a.k.a sun painting or sun dyeing) some fabric.

Mary Emma Allen (Quilting and Patchwork at b5media) put me on to this art / craft — a traditional technique, but new to me — when she mentioned that her daughter (Beth Mastin of Meandering Threads) had had an enjoyable day of painting and sun dyeing fabric for her quilting and fabric art.

Beth started with fabric she’d previously dyed. Today she incorporated items from nature, ferns and leaves, for the designs on the fabrics below as she used sun dyeing and painting techniques. She said she eventually may do some stamping on the fabric. I think they are lovely in the photos as well as “in person.”

I couldn’t track down as many inspiring and instructional websites as I’d expected to find about sun printing (or sun dyeing, or whatever you prefer to call it), but our local library did have Barbara Baker and Jeri Boe’s book, Sun-Kissed Quilts and Crafts.

It has the requisite pretty pictures, it talks about sun-printing projects on paper as well as on fabric, and generally there’s enough “meat” to it that I might pick up a copy of my own (or maybe a good used copy) at Amazon… unless someone has another good book to suggest???

Meanwhile, if you’re new to this but as charmed by Beth’s fern-printed sun dyed fabrics as I am, there’s a clear overview of the basic sun-printing technique — just enough to get an idea if it’s the kind of craft you’d like to experiment with — called Sun Painting Instructions, on Dharma trading Co.’s fibre art supplies website.