The last day before the Easter break, I spent all day in the print room to get everything printed so that I could continue working on my costume over the holiday.
My original plan was to expose the majority of the A1 screen with the large print and a section with the smaller print (for the pocket welts and jets), but in the end used the whole A1 screen for the large print so that I could make it symmetrical and large enough to print the back (so that eventually the back seam will be pattern matched and symmetrical, to make that 'animal spine' look that Fiona asked for). For the smaller print, I exposed an A3 screen as well.
From tracing paper to screen
Testing the screen
I ran into an unexpected problem. When I tested the screen on scrap fabric, there were parts that printed entirely black (where the pattern had not been exposed and all the emulsion had come off). The technicians told me this was because the larger exposure unit is very old and can be unreliable, especially early in the morning before it's 'got going', and I had been the first to use it that day.
Stripping and re-exposing a screen would take hours and I knew there was no open access for the print room for another month. As the faults were nothing major, I decided to block out the errors with parcel tape, so that when printing those parts would be left white, and I could then fill in the gaps individually. Although it would take more time and effort, it was the overall quicker method, as it would mean I could move onto the next stage of my costume, rather than waiting a month to print my fabric. Luckily the gaps were towards the sides so didn't affect the symmetry and would be on the edges of pieces, so there wouldn't be too much needed to fill in afterwards.
Despite this problem, I managed to get all my fabric and some spare printed in the day. I had leftover black binder which I took home as the print room closed. I am going to fill in the gaps later, after cutting out the pattern pieces so that I don't waste time filling in unnecessary parts.
