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Book Review: The Surface Designer’s Handbook

In a fit of extravegance earlier this year, I ordered a whole bunch of things to equip my studio in preparation for writing my book and making the sample quilts. While I was on this spending spree, I bought books….rather a lot of them…ahem! So I thought I’d share my reviews here!

The Surface Designer’s Handbook by Holly Brackmann is a must-have reference for anyone interested in (as the subtitle says) dyeing, printing, painting and creating resists on fabric. Click on the title to visit the amazon.com page for this book.

This book is SO comprehensive, that I think anyone interested in even one or two of the techniques covered would find it a useful reference. Lately, I’ve been seriously bitten by the bug to do screenprinting, and the chapter on that alone is worth the cover price of the book for me.

This is not a book to sit down and browse, although there is plenty of eye-candy in the form of projects ranging from garments to art cloth to art quilts. It is intended to be a how-to manual, and it is. It belongs on the shelf next to Ann Johnston’s and Elin Noble’s books (click on their names to go to the Amazon links). The chapters in Holly’s book are:

Intro
Studio Practices and Safety
Dyes, fibers and fabrics
Color
Fiber-reactive dyes
Acid Dyes
Vat Dyes
Disperse Dyes
Discharging
Screen Printing
Monoprinting
Stamping
Stenciling
Resists
Devore
Textile Paints
Embellishments

These are followed by valuable appendices:
*Dye Worksheet
*Preparing Fabric for dyeing
*Rinsing, Washing and Drying Fabric
*Calculating Stock Solutions, Dye Quantities and Color Mixing
*Thickeners and Printing
*Steaming
*Weights, Measures and Water Temperatures

Which are followed by
Glossary
Bibliography
Resources and
Index.

The only thing I can think of that isn’t in this book is printing photos onto fabric, which is related but kinda different.

Oh…and a technical note: the book is hard cover with an enclosed spiral binding, so it helpfully lays flat while you are working! Just cover with plastic so as not to glop paint and dye on those useful pages!

One Response to “Book Review: The Surface Designer’s Handbook”

  1. Caitlin Says:

    Ahhh, thank you so much for this review – I’ve been eye-ing this book off but it’s always such a gamble when you can’t flick through it yourself.