POTATO-PRINTED TEA TOWEL

This graphic sardine design is printed using stamps made from sweet potatoes. The natural curve of the vegetable works exceptionally well for a fish motif.

YOU WILL NEED White cotton tea towels (available from thecleverbaggers.co.uk) Vegetable knife Five large different-size sweet potatoes Cutting mat Pastel pencil such as Conté à Paris (available from hobbycraft.co.uk) Sheets of kitchen paper Set of lino-cutting tools Ruler Newspaper Acrylic paint in brilliant red, Phthalo blue or Prussian blue and white Acrylic paint textile printing medium Small sponge roller Scrap piece of fabric to test-print on

1 Fold each tea towel widthways into three and lightly iron. 2 Cut the sweet potatoes in half lengthways as straight as you can. Do this in stages with a vegetable knife as they can be quite tough to cut. Cut a slither away from the bottom of each potato (where the skin is) so it can sit flat on a cutting mat. 3 Using the black pastel pencil, draw fish shapes, roughly 13cm-16cm in length (or to fit potato), with an outer and inner circle for an eye, gills, cross hatching across the body for scales and simple definition on the tail. If you’re not happy with any, simply rub them away using damp kitchen tissue. 4 With one potato on the cutting mat at a time, slowly and carefully carve away the pencil designs (and in between the lines for the eye) using the smallest U blade from the lino-cutting tools. Always cut away from yourself and hold the potato in place with your other hand behind your cutting hand. 5 Brush away the loose pieces and, using the vegetable knife, carefully cut around the edges of each fish. 6 For the scalloped border, measure and draw a 2.5cm x 8.5cm rectangle on a piece of potato. You might want to check these dimensions work for the width of your tea towel, particularly if you want to print inside the seam. 7 Once you’re happy with the size, draw a three-curve scallop design with a simple dot inside each on the piece of potato. 8 Using the smallest U blade, carve around the edges of the border and cut out the dot in the centre of each scallop shape. Place the blade vertically above the dots, press down and rotate the potato a full circle under the blade. Wipe away any loose pieces and cut away the edges of the potato using a knife. Wipe the stamps clean with damp kitchen paper and dry. 9 Cover a wipeable surface with newspaper and the tea towel on top, opened flat with the creases from the iron showing. 10 Using the clean stamps, work out where you would like the borders and a rough configuration for the fish – the spacing between, how many fish fit in a line – and lightly mark the newspaper along the edges of the tea towel where necessary as a guide for when you come to print. Do this on fresh newspaper for each tea towel. 11 Make the blue (Phthalo or Prussian) paint lighter by mixing with a little white and then make a fabricprinting ink using one part paint and one part textile printing medium. 12 Cover the sponge roller lightly in printing ink and evenly cover a fish stamp with it. Print onto a piece of scrap fabric, pressing firmly over the back of the potato. When you’re happy and have decided how much pressure should be applied to print, start on the tea towel. Use a variety of different fish shapes and sizes, re-applying ink each time you print. 13 Wash the sponge roller thoroughly and squeeze it between sheets of kitchen paper to dry. It needs to be thoroughly dry before you start on the border. 14 Mix one part red acrylic with one part textile printing medium and print the border in the same way. 15 Once dry, fix the paint with an iron, pressing out the creases in the tea towel. 16 Hand-wash the tea towel after use to stop the ink from fading.