What to do with those ugly fabrics you have made.

One good thing has come of keeping some of the unsatisfactory designs I came up with early in my screen print classes, we can use them to try to shelter plants from the sun.
I seem to remember using this fabric a few years ago when we had another hot stint like this. And last year the poor plants got badly burnt.
We have tried to shelter it again.  We left it a bit late, some leaves are already scorched but we decided to have a go anyway.

Below is another camellia that we covered a few days ago.  You can see the burnt leaf at the bottom, it has not done well at all. The other leaves, behind the sheet, have done a little better.  We had been protecting the plant from the afternoon sun, you can see the morning sun shining on the sheet.  Today it was sooooo hot sooo early that we decided to try both sides even though the morning sun is not usually as bad as the afternoon.

While searching for old sheets and large pieces of fabric to use, I came across old screen print pieces from my first year.  I didn't really have much design background and, doing the part time course and unable to attend the design classes before doing the print class, just came up with some simple designs.  But I still like these, especially when I can cut them up and use different parts in my work.  They are painted nasturtium leaves used for printing, then the images were photocopied.  The photocopier also had the facility to reverse the image, so I could put both on the screen.   

It was a bit serendipitous as I have just come across this blog, where the artist is playing around with nasturtium designs.  

And we have been eating nasturtium leaves in our salads lately - while they are still alive.