For the last few months or so, I’ve been puzzling over the best way to custom print my own fabrics. I’ve contacted screenprinters in the area, read crafty forums, and brainstormed with friends. The potential project had fallen from priority when I discovered a fabric printing link from Frykitty to the Craft Chi blog entry on digitally designed fabrics using Bubble Jet Set 2000. (I loooove Dharma Trading!)
Aha! While I am still limited by the width of paper my printer can manage, this solution is much more financially viable and scalable than purchasing the kits of five sheets for $20. Since some printers now support printing directly from memory cards, once I’ve designed my fabrics, I don’t necessarily have to have the computer hooked up in order to be able to print. My Epson combo scanner printer workhorse has gotten a little grouchy with a sheet or two, but for the most part, I’m getting terrific printed canvas pieces out of this. Think I am going to look for a used wider format printer and pick up a number of those inkjet refuill kits so I can print a fair amount of fabric for a reasonable investment.
I would really love to be able to get larger pieces done, but since I am primarily going to be using this for bags and other smaller items, this is a good solution for the time being. My next challenge is to configure my printer to print banner-sized reams of fabric.
Completely and utterly in love with our garden. The touch of rural living added to our urban existence makes me very happy. Nearly every meal I’ve prepared in the last week has included something from our garden, which has the added bonus of getting me to eat more vegetables.
The three tiers of lettuce are growing like mad, which means lots of salads. The hail storm last weeked knocked my pea plants over and broke a few leaves on our meyer lemon tree, but so far everything is recovering nicely. The cilantro I started from seed is ready for its own containers and we have much more than we need for the time being. I’ve let a few friends know that we have extra cilantro plants if they would like one for their garden.
The worms in our bins appear to be very happy. We are starting to get “worm juice” and the bottom tray is about halfway processed. I have a large plastic container filled with fruit and veggie scraps in the fridge, and we’re currently producing more scraps than the worms can handle. (Artichokes produce a lot of worm-friendly scraps.) I added a second tray with a lot of shredded paper last weekend. I swear it’s the world’s best identity theft prevention — just feed the paper scraps to the worms. I don’t think there is a scam artist savvy enough to pull any of my personal information once the worms have gotten to it.
We purchased an additional upside-down planter for an Anaheim Pepper plant we picked up at the opening day of the neighborhood farmer’s market last Saturday. The only other plant I think we’re missing right now is the jalapeno. I’m trying to get the patio organized so that I have a bin of dirt from last season that needs to be recycled, and a second bin with fresh dirt and earthworm castings. Container gardening definitely has its challenges, but I am finding I prefer it to traditional gardening because we have much better control over the soil, and it is easier to keep a handle on any weeds. If I could change one thing about our setup, we would have an outdoor faucet and hose for our patio. Lee Valley has some nice ones that look like they would work well for patios, but our watering can works just as well.