This week’s project is based on a project I found in a book borrowed from the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library. Print Workshop by Christine Schmidt has information on a variety of printing techniques. Her Veggie Picnic Set project inspired me to try potato stamping. Since it’s autumn and Halloween is approaching, I decided to make a creepy leaf print.

Materials

• Cotton canvas or blank fabric of your choice in white or beige
• Iron & ironing board
• Potatoes in interesting shapes
• Kitchen knife
• Small knife or carving knife
• Cutting board
• Paper plates or flat paint palettes
• Plastic knife or palette knife
• Non-toxic acrylic paint or fabric paint
• Container for water
• Newspaper

This project is best done on the weekend; I spent 5 to 6 hours working on this. You may already have a lot of these items at home. The ones you don’t can be bought at a craft store.

Steps

Iron your fabric with the appropriate heating setting to get rid of wrinkles and folds. You can also keep the wrinkles to create a textured effect after stamping.

Wash your potatoes and carefully cut them into halves. Please be mindful when you use a kitchen knife or any sharp tools. As a family friend once said, “Knives don’t say ‘sorry’!”

Use a small knife to carve a leaf design into one potato half. Leaves come in all shapes, sizes, and vein patterns, so don’t stress for the perfect design! Since we’re making creepy leaves, let’s carve faces in the design.

After carving all of the potato halves, put some newspaper on the floor. Squeeze some acrylic paint onto the paper plates; one color for each plate. Mix some autumn leaf colors with your plastic knife! Once you get the color you want, spread the paint on the plate.

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Lay your fabric flat on the newspaper. Roll up your sleeves, take a potato half, press the potato into the plate of acrylic paint, and then stamp the fabric. Make sure you press with even pressure onto the fabric.

Wear old clothes, and be very careful as you stamp. A potato stamp slipped out of my hand, and I got paint on my sweater and jeans! Luckily, I was able to wash them off with cold water. If this happens to you, follow the instructions on the fabric paint container.

Apply more paint onto the potato stamp as you keep stamping a design onto the fabric. Depending on your design, you may want to stamp one color at a time to use up the paint before it dries on the plate. If you do this and you have a large piece of fabric, allow the paint to dry between colors. I had some difficulty stepping on my fabric to stamp certain areas because I was scared of smearing stamps.

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When you’re done stamping, wait for the paint to dry. If you’d like, you can heat-set the paint following the instructions on the paint container. This way, you can make the design permanent.

Now you have a creepy leaf design on your fabric! You can use this fabric for other projects, such as tote bags, aprons, and pouches. If you did this project, I’d love to see your textile design. Post a link to a picture in the comments!

Crafting into the sunset,
Virginia