An Introduction to Sun Printing

It's been about 25 years since I've used sun printing paper but it's something I've been thinking about for a while! Who knew there was sun printing fabric?! I made this easy little square pin cushion using 8.5" cotton cyanotype fabric squares and buttons:

Shopping list:

• Blueprints on Fabric(pink on blue)
• found objects (buttons, rocks, etc)

Let's get started!

This applique shirt was so simple...

...and I love the extra button detail:

The squares I used are the Blueprints on Fabric(pink on blue) shown below:

In a nutshell, the 8.5" fabric squares in the kit are pretreated with a chemical that makes them change color in sunlight. I took the squares and pinned them to cardboard backing to keep them in place and laid various objects on top to experiment:

I placed the board in the sun for about 10 minutes and let the sunlight do its thing. The fabric darkens slightly (not to its dark blue you would expect):

Once the fabric has been in the sun for about 10 to 15 minutes, it is washed with cold water and the dark blue color appears:

I'm pretty sure there are over million things you could do with this fabric...here was my first hour of playing with it:

I pinned buttons to the fabric in the shape of a heart:

I pinned one of my mother's old necklaces in place:

I layered different types of lace:

I used a transparency with a superhero "POW" on it:

Stay tuned for more sun printing soon!