DIY Screen Printed Napkins — Becki and Chris

Tools:

Impact driver
Chop saw
Canvas stretching pliers (optional)
Staple gun
Plotter/vinyl cutter (optional)
Iron
Sewing machine

Materials:

2 meters of white cotton fabric for the napkins
1 meter of plain sheer fabric for the screen mesh (should be about 150 "holes" per inch)
Paint of your choice (we used a cheap acrylic paint from Michael's in slate grey)
Martha Stewart Fabric Base
1x3 lumber
Adhesive vinyl or painter's tape
"Repositionable" spray adhesive
1x2 lumber
Sand paper
Wood screws
4 nickels

These napkins were a bit of a headache, but once we found a printing process that worked things got much easier. We first tried hand stamping them with block printing materials. The results were awful. The design was bleeding and the print itself was very blotchy and uneven. We also tried taping off the design on the fabric and painting with a brush, but that was equally as terrible and very time consuming. Our vision of the napkins was a print with perfectly crisp and solid lines and we quickly realized that screen printing was probably the only way we were going to achieve this. Chris and I used to own a screen printing studio, so this process was fairly familiar to us. However, we had only ever printed with a fully equipped studio, which we sold long ago! Nonetheless, we know all the steps like the back of our hand so we devised a method to screen print with common supplies. Anyone can do this! You do not need screen printing experience to get the same results.

Step one was to wash and dry the fabric you are going to use for the napkins. Iron the fabric and cut out your desired size napkins. The final size of ours was 19.5x19.5", with 1" seam allowance added to each side (the edges will need to be turned in twice for a clean look). We cut out seven and used one for test printing.

The basic premise of screen printing is you use a squeegee to drive ink through a tight mesh screen and onto your fabric underneath. The mesh screen is covered/masked out in certain areas that correspond to your design. The mesh sits just above your fabric ("off contact") so that as the squeegee makes a pass, the mesh peels away from the fabric below, leaving a nice uniform layer of ink (or paint in our case).

To make the screen, create a frame out of 1x3s and screw the sides together. We made our frame 26x26" (inner diameter), giving us 4.5" of wiggle room around our 21.5" fabric. Once the frame is made, sand it with course sandpaper (e.g. 60 grit or less) to remove any sharp or splintered edges that might damage the mesh.

Cut the mesh so it hangs over the edge of the frame a good three or so inches. The easiest way to attach the mesh is by stapling it, much the same way you would stretch a fine art canvas, except instead of wrapping the mesh around the edges of the frame and stapling the back, you can just staple it to the front. Start in the centre of one of the longest edges (obviously only applies to rectangular frames) and place a few staples on 45 degree angles, then move to the opposite side, apply tension to the mesh, and place a few more staples. Canvas stretching pliers are helpful but not required. Then turn the frame 90 degrees and repeat in the perpendicular direction. Your mesh should now be tight in the shape of a "plus sign". Now rotate the frame 90 degrees, back to the original direction you started with. On either side of the originally placed staples, apply tension and an additional staple. Flip the frame 180 degrees, apply tension, and staple directly opposite to your last ones. Your area under tension will have widened. Rotate 90 degrees and do the same thing, widening your area of tension in the perpendicular direction. Continue this back and forth stretching and stapling process, slowly working your way to the edges of the frame. The important part of this is TENSION. You want a very tight mesh (which should sound like a drum when you tap it) but be careful not to split/tear the mesh by tensioning too tight. Once your mesh is attached, you can carefully cut off the excess.

To make the squeegee, we used a piece of 1x2 lumber and eased the edges with sandpaper so they were not sharp. We also sanded the corners so they wouldn't accidentally pierce the tight mesh.

In actual commercial screen printing, transferring your design to the screen is accomplished by coating the screen with UV sensitive emulsion in a dark room, printing your design on transparency film, and then shining UV light through the transparency to selectively cure the emulsion on the screen. The uncured areas are washed out with water which reveals your design in the mesh. Since all we need to do is mask out the parts of the mesh where we don't want ink/paint on our fabric, one can accomplish this simply by using adhesive vinyl or painter's tape! This should be applied to the fabric side of the screen because if you apply it to the squeegee side, the squeegee pressure will rip off the mask. We happen to have a vinyl cutter/plotter, so we mocked up our design in Adobe Illustrator and sent it to the plotter which made all the cuts on the adhesive vinyl for us. One could simply make the cuts manually with an X-acto knife or tape off the design directly on the back of the screen with painter's tape. If using adhesive vinyl, once you cut and weed out your design, use pre-mask or overlapping strips of masking tape to transfer the design over (you're essentially making a vinyl decal). After you transfer your design, the inside edges of the screen (squeegee side) can be taped off to keep ink out of the edge crevices.

In actual screen printing, plastisol ink or water based ink is used, both of which need to be cured in a special conveyor dryer. To get around this hurtle, we used Martha Stewart's fabric base additive and mixed it with some plain craft paint. This allowed it to air dry like normal paint and only required ironing afterwards to cure. Note that your paint should be the consistency of a milkshake. You may need to adjust the ratio of fabric base to paint to achieve this.

Now for the printing! We placed a large piece of melamine on the floor to work on. We applied spray adhesive directly to the melamine and stuck down the first square of napkin fabric. For the first napkin, mark the position of its corners on the melamine so you can put the rest in same spot.

In order to get the gap between the screen and the fabric, we placed a nickel under each corner of the screen. This will allow the screen to pop off the fabric as the squeegee passes over it and keeps the inky screen off your fabric prior to your print stroke.

It is important to line up the screen/your design with the fabric underneath. Once you are happy with the design placement, mark the position of the screen corners on the melamine so you know where to put the screen every time.

The print technique we always use is the "push technique". Pour a fairly generous amount of paint/ink along the far edge of the screen (edge furthest away from you). Don't go overboard though, you should not have paint overflowing into the middle of the screen where your design is. Next, "flood the screen" by lifting up the screen edge closest to you and lightly pulling the ink towards you with the edge of the squeegee closest to you. This will spread the ink/paint across the screen and fill the open mesh holes which is very important because it prevents the mesh from drying out and clogging once you start the printing process. Now lower the screen back down, making sure it's still lined up with the fabric below, and get a friend to hold the screen firmly in place. With the screen's mesh already flooded/loaded, perform your print stroke by applying downward and forward pressure as you push the squeegee across the screen. This will shear the ink through the mesh and onto the fabric. I find two push passes, one after another, (without flooding the screen in between) is best as it makes sure all the ink is transferred to the fabric. Carefully lift up the screen, making sure you don't smudge the paint on the fabric. Peel the fabric off the melamine and place it in a safe area to dry for 24h, wet paint side facing up.

Here is a little video of the printing process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QykFpRxrllM&feature=youtu.be

Repeat for all napkins. The edges don’t have to be perfect, remember we will be turning and sewing the edges afterwards for a clean, finished edge. Once the napkins are dry you need to cure the paint. I used an iron on the cotton setting to run over the napkins.

Press (iron) the edges of each side of the napkins folding first about 1/4" and then again at about 1/2". Pin the fold. Repeat for all napkins.

Pop your fabric on a sewing machine and sew around the square. The final step is pressing the entire napkin.

And the final finished product: