Book Review, 40 years late... and so new!

Oh Yay, old textile printing books! Taught a class entitled Paint it! Stamp it!, which gave me the chance to delve into several books bequeathed to me after the University of Iowa's Fiber Art program was shut down in 1991. Fabric Printing by Lotti Lauterburg (Reinhold Publishing, New York, 1959) covers potatoes, rubber blocks, linocuts and batik, with various "projects" in a setting that looks like it could come from a current modernist shelter magazine. I haven't found this volume for sale, but you might find it deep in a library collection or fiber artists' yard sale.

My favorite is a small square shaped book by Nora Proud, Textile Printing and Dyeing, (BT Batsford, London 1965), still available used online. She does a lot of potato printing overlaid on tie-dyed cloth. Also explored: string relief blocks, linocuts, resists. Design considerations and discussions are useful. Interesting example of natural objects and the prints that resulted from drawings made from them. Extremely interesting discussion of printing projects for children and disabled young people, both individual and group projects. Stencils with screens, reduction stencils (print, tear away, print some more, tear more away etc.)

Block Printing on Textiles by Janet Erickson is by an artist with an interesting Wikipedia page. Her book is expensive, but a glance through it will give you views of the artist spreading out her fabric on the floor and using her feet to stamp the wood block prints. She uses a lot of relief print techniques.

And lastly, there's Richard M. Procter and Jennifer F. Lew's Surface Design for Fabric (University of Washington Press, 1984), also available used online. The newest of the four books, it nonetheless has variations on techniques we use a great deal now, but fresh approaches. Good design considerations. Lots of written resource information, including sewing techniques.