Several years ago, at the Jamestown
conference, I had the opportunity to take a class on heat
stamping patterns on fabric with Ninya Mikhalia of the Tudor Tailor. Her husband had made her the tools we were using in the class. It was great fun and I wanted to play with it more. When I got back home, I tried to find a way to make my own stamps, but I
am not handy in the ways of metal and wood and it was never a project I made
any significant progress on. And I am easily distracted by the Next. Interesting. Thing. so it fell by the wayside.
Recently, I was on the Tudor Tailor Etsy shop chasing one rabbit hole or another, and lo and behold, they are now selling sets of stamping tools! Sending thanks to the universe for having a good job (because they were not cheap), I bought a set and waited impatiently for the tools to arrive from the UK. They arrived this week and this weekend I got to play with them.
They came in a set of three: two flowers and a rectangular design.
They heat on a hot plate.
First attempt: Silk Taffeta. I was excited to see the dark impression until I realized that it had shattered the taffeta in one spot. I'm pretty sure that the stamp was too hot.
Try #2: cheap, slubby silk dupioni. Noticeable but definitely not as clear as the taffeta. I stamped left to right and there is a distinct softening of the edges between the first flower and the third.
Try #3: Same taffeta, slightly cooler stamp. I really wanted to love this stamp, but I don't, although, after a little more experimentation, I managed to make end-to-end stamps flow together more smoothly.
Try #4: Wool. Not a bad result.
But try #5 was the clear winner. Cotton Velveteen. Absolutely gorgeous result! My immediate thought was: "What can I make out of velveteen that needs stamping?!"
I can see a variety of fun uses for them, however, stamping an entire pattern piece would be a really time-consuming process. Each heating of a stamp provided 3-5 motifs before I needed to reheat the stamp for 5 minutes. It would be easier with 2-3 sets of tools to rotate through, but that is a crazy amount of money to spend (even for me). Must think more about how to solve this.
Now I am off to chase down more information on this technique in 16th century Europe. I've found an article by a Turkish scholar (which deserves its own blog post) who says the technique originated in Turkey in the 15th century and was exported to Europe and India. And there are quite a few extant 16th-century Ottoman garments that use the technique. I know I've seen extant European garments with this technique (and Tudor Tailor wouldn't be selling the tools if there wasn't solid information out there... so I guess my first step is to look at their books!)
