Big Parcel Day

Today my hubby shouted for me to come downstairs, where I spied this big parcel in his hands that had been delivered for me!

What could it be?

Why joy of joys, it's my new screen. Isn't it lovely? (start the happy dance, plenty of clapping and skipping).

I know that you can be very good and make your own screen, but that would entail skills that I don't feel I possess. I also know that if I had attempted to make my own, the chances are that it wouldn't have turned out nice and tight, but saggy and unusable instead. Lots of rippley, blotchy prints. That's why I ordered it from here: www.lawrence.co.uk

Since I'm planning on mainly printing on card I got a screen with 90T mesh in it. I believe that the number relates to how many threads there are per cm, and the letter relates to how thick each one of those threads are. I'd like to eventually get a 120T screen as I would be able to get finer details on that. The often seen 43T's are really for printing onto fabric, like T-shirts, as they allow more ink to get through the mesh (as the fabric soaks up a lot).

I also bought these special hinges to keep the screen in place, you can get bigger, fancier ones but I thought these would do to start off with.

When I did my course at silkwormstudios.com I was given instructions by Nobby on how to set up a table top silk screen press which I plan to follow. Don't be mistaken, I wont actually construct it myself. But I'm thinking I'll take photos of the hubby constructing it, and try to put it on here as a kind of tutorial. I just need to bribe him to do it, probably a beer will do. I always love to see tutorials on things.

On another note, happy birthday Dad!