Printed Patchwork

How can you capture the aesthetics of hand sewn patchwork in a digital-heavy medium like dye sublimation printing?

After being introduced to dye sublimation printing, bonded composite fabrics, and rapid prototyping in Fall 2018, I became interested in exploring how traditional printing and quilting techniques could be adapted for modern technology.

Customer Profile

Approaching this project as if I was developing for retail, I created a customer profile to guide my design decisions.

Process

Print explorations were done to think outside the box of digital design. Instead of creating a final print on the computer, block of color are printed at different opacities and then applied in layers to fabrics. The final main fabric has a faux suede bottom layer printed with overlapping rectangles. The patchwork effect was elevated by layering sheer fabrics printed in several colors over top of the bottom layer.

Other experiments developed for accent fabrics include using the back side of printed fabric for a “ghost” effect or using warp knit mesh to mask off areas during printing.

Side accent fabric is two layers of mesh printed with the same pattern, but the top layer is flipped to the backside and offset.

The pattern of the Heel accent fabric was created by printing a solid color over a base fabric and mesh, and the offsetting the mesh so the masked fabric was visible. This was overlaid with a sheer fabric printed with a solid color.

Shoe Making

The final shoes were made with the help of Brooklyn Shoe Space during a 3 day workshop covering shoe making from translating my sketch into a flat pattern, all the way to hand sewing my shoes to their soles.

Cutting fabric after developing a flat pattern

Checking fit of uppers before pinning lining to fabric