how I finally learned to screen print fabric

I've been dabbling in screen printing my own fabric for awhile now. I posted about my first try with drawing fluid here, and with photo emulsion here. Originally I thought that making the actual screen was the hard part. What I didn't talk much about on my blog, but shared more on Instagram, was how frustrating it was to do the actually printing. I read every blog post I could find on how to do it right. I read screen printing forums. I watched countless YouTube videos. I got a lot of advice from other printers. Nothing clicked. I wasted a ton of fabric and wondered if I should focus my efforts elsewhere.

Then I came across creativebug, and the screen printing workshops with Hilary Willams. Bingo!

Hilary is unassuming and knows what she's doing. She has five different workshops that take you from printing with a simple stencil to doing multi-color prints. Right now I'm just focusing on how to do really good single color prints on fabric, but I like knowing that I have the tools to do more advanced work later on.

After watching this workshop, I ordered a few upgraded supplies from Blick Art materials (a good squeegee, aluminum frame screens, and lots of inks). I made a new screen with drawing fluid. Then I printed panel after panel with no mistakes. It was glorious.

Since then I've been printing and making and thinking about all of the fun possibilities ahead. 

There is really something wonderful about online workshops. The accessibility from home is so awesome. I love Craftsy too and have signed up for a few of their classes, and I definitely plan to take more. I think both Craftsy and creativebug are valuable in different ways though.  

My favorite things about creativebug: 

- There is a subscription option. While individual workshops range from $9.99 and up, you can get a subscription that gives you unlimited access to all of the workshops for a very reasonable fee. This means that I've been able to not only view the screen printing workshops, but I've been able to check out the other things I was interested in but wouldn't have probably paid for individually. Some of my favorites include all of Anna Maria Horner's workshops, Boho Leather Cuffs with Elke Bergeron, and Image Transfers with Courtney Cerruti. Claire has really loved the apothecary workshops with Amy Karol and the various kids workshops. I can let her watch as many as she wants without worrying about the cost. 

- The workshops are thorough but condensed. I'm able to watch workshops and learn in a short amount of time. That's huge. The Intro to Screen Printing workshop is only 42 minutes long, so I watched it in a naptime and then went back to review the individual sections as I was printing. 

So that's how I finally learned to screen print fabric (without pulling my hair out). If you're interested in trying too, I really believe that this is a great place to start.
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Before writing this post, I decided to become a creativebug affiliate. So some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and sign up, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe in. And I think creativebug rocks, commission or not.