I was looking through my posts and realized I had left out one very important lesson… Stamping out your projects!
Many of you have taken my classes and know this information, but many of you haven’t so I’m putting it in this post to clear up any misunderstandings. (And it is a great reference for those of you that haven’t used the stamps, yet.)
Place your fabric FACE DOWN! You will always be stamping on the wrong side of the fabric.
I always lay out my fabric with the LENGTHWISE grain at the top of my rotary cutting mat. ALL THE STAMPS HAVE FINGERHOLDS AND THE FINGERHOLDS ARE MEANT TO BE PLACED PARALLEL TO THE LENGTHWISE GRAIN. (If you need a refresher on the grain lines, refer back to my blog post on borders.)
Lengthwise Grain
Lengthwise grain is at the top of the square.
Next, tap your stamp on top of the ink pad. The pads are raised for easier stamping. If you are using a large stamp, tap GENTLY across the pad. If you have too much ink, use a paper towel and remove the excess and restamp. (You can tell you have used too much or stamp too hard if you have excess ink in the middle of your design that you stamped.)
Tap gently across the pad.
Place your fingers in the fingerholds and press straight down with the stamp. Reink each time you stamp.
Cut out your pieces on the OUTSIDE line and stitch on the inside line.
Cut out on the outside line.
And a word about the ink I use… I use FABRIC ink. It is permanent, won’t wash out, won’t bleed through unless you are stamping too hard. It IS archival, which means it is acid free so it won’t deteroriate your fabric in years to come. I don’t heat set my fabric after stamping. I did a test years ago to see if it mattered and it didn’t, so I skip this step, although you can press it after stamping if you feel like it.
I use high quality versa craft ink.
I find that the chocolate brown color will cover about 80% of the fabrics I stamp, but sometimes I need the white. Each pad is preinked with enough ink to stamp out at least 2 small quilts if you keep the cover on between stampings and leave it upside down in a plastic bag. Reinkers are available if you need to freshen your pad. I can refresh about 50 times with one little reinker. Of course these are available on my website!
To clean your stamps, use a “wet one” or a baby wipe, dry with a paper towel and you are done!
Happy stamping to you this week!