Art Hound

Jacqueline Bos, who is best known for her work in illustration, just launched her first line of napkins and pillows and sat down to tell us a bit about it. W/ Heart is available here for now (runs are tiny!) and if you must know my favorite piece is the rabbit pillow.

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Tell us a bit about your new collection, W/ Heart.
W/Heart {with heart} is a really small collection textile collection. Each item is hand printed with water based inks (permanent) on locally bought 100% organic cotton. I personally printed and sewed each item in the collection so there are a very limited amount of each. The collection is 3 pillowcovers, 4 napkin sets and 2 plush bunnies.

It was a lot harder than I had initially thought. I went through a ton of sketches designing the patterns, and initially had more I was planning to use but it just became such a huge undertaking that I pared it down to the ones that you see. I have access to a print studio where I burned the screens, but it’s usually pretty dirty in there so I ended up printing everything in my apartment and drying everything on strings I’d hung from one side to the other. I made everything in really small batches. Setting up the shop was pretty simple, but the photography was a struggle! I’ve always struggled a bit with lighting, but I hope in the end the photos give you a good feel for the items themselves.

Oh dear, tons. It was all little things that are just so frustrating, like setting everything up, ready to print and then realizing the squeegee I was planning on using was an inch too small for the printable area. Plus since i was using my apartment as a mock drying rack, i could only print about 10 fabric pieces at a time, then wait a few hours for them to dry, and set up and print again. It was definitely a process.

I do! I love the “Black Magic” screen and especially that pillow because it’s white with black ink on the front and slate with white ink on the back. It just looks really awesome all put together.

Make sure to work out all the details before you start. There will be a lot fewer surprises that way. Also stick to what you know, and what you do well. I wouldn’t have taken on a hand printing project if I didn’t have years of experience with printmaking, because there are just so many little things that you learn through the years that are integral to keeping waste low, and quality high.

Maija Louekari, Hanna Werning, and Sanna Annukka (below) all have bold, but intricate prints on everything from ceramics to textiles. I also really love traditional scandinavian textiles, they’re so simple and elegant.