Custom Fans, yet again continuing

[labricoleuse]

I've completed a third experiment in the ongoing project of custom-printed fan leaves, this time using the cotton-silk blend fabric offered by Spoonflower. Each time i do this, i learn a little bit more about the process, which i'm aggregating in posts here using the fans tag. At least one of my students is going to be doing a project in this same vein as well, so hopefully this is going to be a sufficient amount of R&D to make it a viable project for others to take on as well, should the need arise.

My third set of fan leaf designs includes two leaves based on the rose window patterns of famous cathedrals, Amiens and Leon, rendered in two different colorways. To test this design, i ordered it in the cotton-silk, which turns out to be basically a charmeuse with a cotton warp and silk traveling threads, it seems.




Tacky-riffic red plastic frame and lace leaf. Fine if your play takes place in a bordello?


I had to trim this much off my leaf design to get it to fit on the monture.
I could have adjusted the artwork, instead, but this is the route i went in the time i had.


Finished fan!


Closed, it looks like this.

I'm sticking with my original fabric choice of silk crepe de chine from here on out. Though i love the satin sheen of the cotton-silk, it frays like nobody's business along the bottom cut edge, fuzzing out before i even got the leaf completely adhered to the frame. So, if a designer insisted on it as a fabric choice, i'd do some experiments with Fray-Check and such, but since i don't have to use it for my own fan projects, i won't!

I'm amassing my fan leaf designs into a collection on Spoonflower, for future quick reference. Fun!

Comments

[auroraceleste.livejournal.com]

Do you have a template for the fan designs you're making? I'd love to do a few of my own :D

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

I don't have a template, no, because the artwork each time starts out at a different size. Basically i just size it up in photoshop so that the distance of the diameter of the semicircle winds up being the distance from tip to tip of the open fan frame. So, if you start out with a frame that opens to a full width of 16" (which so far all mine have) you just size your semicircle to be that wide, no template required!

[auroraceleste.livejournal.com]

Ah, I get it! I dunno why I hadn't wrapped my head around it yet. Thanks!

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

Also, if you do some, i want to see! It is super easy, so i would say, just go for it!