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Writer's pictureHelen Moyes

Textile Art From the Garden


I’ve been busy designing and tending my new garden, enjoying the sunshine today which is the inspiration for this tutorial blog to give you ideas for botanical printing onto your fabric.





Plants are often used as inspiration in textile design but they can literally be used to design fabric by using leaves, petals etc. to print onto fabric.

I have done this by simply applying fabric paint onto a leaf and then placing it face down onto (well-washed) fabric. I have also used my gelli plate fabric paint and foliage to create designs on fabric.

These can be done whatever the weather but since it’s still warn, sunny weather I thought I’d share my cyanotype printing with you.







I have previously used a chemical to pre-treat my own fabric for sun printing and found it messy and tricky finding somewhere dark to dry the fabric. This is the cheapest option though for lots of fabric, for a large project. For example, you can get the two chemicals (potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate) in a kit to mix your UV-sensitive solution when you are ready for around £13. You need to provide the well-washed, pressed cotton to work with. Jacquard says it will coat 65 8 x 10 inch pieces of paper or fabric. I find more is soaked up by fabric so count on less for textile art.


The easiest way to get going with cyanotype (sun) printing is to purchase preprepared fabric (or paper). You can get packs of five of either white or coloured treated fabric 15cm squares for around £8.


So you choose if messy dripping drying fabric needing to be kept in the dark is an issue to you or not and the size of the fabric you want to print on and make your choice!


Once you have your treated fabric, it helps to have a sunny day, the more sunlight and the faster the process. On a dull cloudy day it’s still possible, just leave for longer. Also it's good to experiment as overexposure will create different results.

I left my pieces on my garden table for 30 minutes as it was a typically British cloudy summer day, or have resorted to a sunny windowsill.


It helps to use a sheet of glass (NOT UV protected) and I have some pieces of glass that I have protected the edges of with tape to protect myself from cuts. I use these for mono printing, and even just for mixing paints so it’s worth the effort of protecting my fingers.


Remember the chemicals used to treat the fabrics are IV reactive, so you want to keep them in a lightproof bag they come in as long as possible, and set up your print in dim light. I went under the garden table and used my body to block out more light!


I chose some nature-inspired items to "print" with:

Leaves & flowers from my garden

floral stencils



The items placed on the fabric act as a resist, so the part of the fabric that doesn't get exposed stays the original colour of the fabric. Here, I used the bright coloured sun printing pack to reflect my garden theme.


My printing station consisted of a chopping board with a piece of paper on top. I placed a couple of the pre-treated cotton squares on this and then added my leaves and flowers. I placed my glass sheet on top of this and then slightly tilted it using a stone as a prop so it faced the sun.


After 30 minutes I rinsed the fabric in cold water, I then left it in the water for 15 minutes to make sure all the chemicals were removed and to ensure a deep colour.


I then hung them to dry and over the afternoon I collected five sun printed squares all hanging in a row.




Note: before using these need to be ironed with a warm, dry iron to set the colour.


You may be thinking, like I did that these cotton squares are cute, but what do I make with them? I decided to make some pot holders. I think they would certainly look great in the garden for a BBQ.


The 15cm squares are a little small on their own, plus I thought patchwork would help bring out the beauty of these mini sun printed creations. Any fabric used to make a pot holder needs to be either 100% cotton or linen. Synthetic fabrics, like polyester, can’t handle the heat so check any fabric you use is 100% natural.


Thermal batting is also an essential part of a safe pot holder. It includes a layer of metallized fibre to protect your hands from the heat. Please do not try to use quilt batting alone without the thermal layer!


Potholder method:

1. Cut out the following pieces from fabric piece stash. You can decide which fabric designs to use on each part.

  • cut two 22cm squares from fabric, one with the sunprint design incorporated in patchwork, one is a plain piece that you will only see a little of.

  • cut two 22×16cm rectangles from fabric

  • cut one 22cm square from thermal batting, such as Insul-Bright

  • cut one 22cm square and one 22 x 16cm rectangle from regular quilt batting. I prefer cotton and bamboo blend.

2. First make the inside rectangle piece: Place two fabric pieces right sides together. Place batting on one wrong side.Sew along one long side of the rectangle. Trim corners at 45 degrees and trim the batting close to the seam (to reduce bulkiness at the edge).




Turn to the right side and stitch 2 – 3 lines of quilting. I sewed across from one corner to the one diagonally opposite, to make a cross. I then used these lines as guides to continue quilting a chevron pattern.

3. make a hanging loop from a fabric scrap or some cotton webbing.

4. Layer up:

thermal batting with the patchwork sun print face up on top of the rectangle of quilted fabric on top of this with the raw edge along one of the squares edgesplain fabric square face down on top of rectangle, with regular batting on top of this

Poke the hanging loop inside this from one corner and secure with a pin

5. Pin and sew around this layered square, leaving a gap on one side to turn the pot holder out.

6. Turn out and press.

7. Sew top stitching all around the edge of the square on the top. I used cream thread for this but feel free to go wild with contrasting or variegated thread!





If you have questions or would like any further help with your textile art please do leave a comment.


I love leading textile art workshops and if you would like more details of these, do get in touch.


Helen x

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