Surface Design Myths Busted
By Lyric Kinard

Have you wanted to make your own fabric but thought surface design techniques were too difficult, time-consuming, or expensive? I’m here to set the record straight!

1. FICTION: I don’t have time to learn a new and complicated technique.
FACT: You can learn to foil, photo-transfer, stencil, or screen print in less time than it takes to watch your favorite TV show. If you simply can’t live without an hour of TV, move a little table in front of the couch and work while you watch.

2. FICTION: I don’t have a studio so I can’t take up something difficult like stamp carving and printing.
FACT: It doesn’t take any more space than your kitchen table. My first dedicated “studio” was a corner of the kitchen counter.

3. FICTION: It’s too expensive to buy all the equipment needed for surface design.
FACT: Solvent photocopy transfer costs no more than a bottle of Citra-Solve®—and you can clean your kitchen, too. Stencils can be made with freezer paper, a stamp can be carved from an eraser. If I can buy it from the grocery store I don’t count it as part of my quilting expenses.

4. FICTION: Painting fabric is too hard.
FACT: Remember kindergarten? Remember cutting paper snowflakes and freely finger painting? Replace your fear with a spirit of free play and adventure and pick up your paintbrush. When was the last time you heard someone tell a beginning reader to give it up and do something else because they weren’t perfect the first try? Give your budding inner artist room to learn and grow.

5. FICTION: My work isn’t as good as Picasso, I’m no artist.
FACT: Picasso didn’t paint a masterpiece the first time he picked up a brush. Give yourself permission to play and enjoy the learning process. Giving a photo of your grandma a shiny foil tiara is great fun. The wonderful thing about surface design is that if you don’t like your outcome you can just print or paint right over the top of it!