Stamp it! Cool textile stamps and dye supplies from our TAFA Team.

Vintage Textile Stamps from Afghanistan

Without a doubt, our TAFA Team members are incredibly talented!  With stitches, dye, and all kinds of tools, they transform threads, fabric and other materials into gorgeous clothing, art pieces, and functional things for your home.  Surface design, those changes wrought on a piece of fabric, has become a broad discipline that supports the exploration of what can be done: take it to the limit!  Twist it, dye it, stamp it, stitch it!

Stamping fabric is an ancient practice all over the world.  From the simple carved potato to intricate wood carvings and metal tools, we find examples of textile stamps in almost every culture.

Handcarved textile stamps from the Oshiwa Designs, Namibia

Before the actual stamping, dyes can be applied to the fabric or to yarns to create unique colors or designs.  Jane Porter sells natural dyes in her Etsy shop:

Natural Indigo Dye Kit available on tangledlair

There are many tutorials online and videos on youtube of how you can use the stamps and dyes to create infinite effects.  Acrylic paints can be rolled on with a brayer or a stamp can be dipped into liquid dye.  It all depends on what YOU can imagine and how you like to work.

A couple of examples of what our TAFA Team members do:

Stenciled Katazome Designs by Kit Eastman

Kit uses a traditional Japanese stenciling technique for her designs.  She describes it: "Katazome is a traditional Japanese textile design process in which a stencil is cut from a special water impervious mulberry paper. Rice paste resist is then "printed" through the stencil and left to dry. The open areas of the cloth are painted with brushes using natural pigments in a soymilk binder. The cloth is air-cured, which binds the color to the cloth permanently. Finally the paste is washed off to reveal the completed design."

SimonEtCie has some cool Japanese stamps that would work well with Katazome!

Vintage Japanese Wax Seal Stamps

Susan Schinnick, of Iowa (big supplier of corn here in the US) both dyes her fabric and makes her own stamps to alter fabric for her home accents and garments:

Corn stamp, original designs by Susan Schinnick

As you can see, the possibilities are endless!  Other team members also sell patterns, felt supplies, fabric, kits they make and vintage tools.  Look through our Supplies and Patterns page and you are sure to find some very cool treasures to add to your studio!