Hand printing

We make fabric that is kind to us and to the planet – we handprint using water-based ink on 100% linen

I want things in my home that are good for me, my family and the planet. I can’t make a happy home using paper and fabric that harms people and the environment and that’s why I’ve chosen only to handprint using water-based ink on 100% linen.

I’ve been a hand printer for many years, sitting on the lino during supper to get it warmed up and workable and then cutting my block in the evening when the children have gone to bed. I print wherever I can – on the kitchen floor using my feet (a good work out), in the garden if it’s sunny or in my rather cold garage if the weather’s unkind.

Over the years I’ve discovered and been inspired by other women hand printers, like Enid Marx or Peggy Angus who developed block printing into a wonderful art – full of lovely marks, movement and spontaneity.

Peggy Angus, lived not far from me along the South Downs and designed beautiful hand printed papers full of oak leaves, heraldic dogs and birds, grapes and vines, corn stalks, stylised suns and winds. They seem rooted in the natural world and in the visual arts of the British Isles. And although Peggy was very successful – designing for Sanderson and the newly built Gatwick Airport – she preferred printing by hand and would never allow her designs to be mass-produced.

Like me, she understood that the act of placing each individual block creates a rhythm and a dance within the fabric that is very special.

And the act of cutting and printing the block itself is very much a part the design process itself – never an afterthought. For me – printing is as much a part of the design process as drawing.