“Can I have your address? I want to try printing on this.”
That’s the message from my friend, CarolAnn P., who I met at the 2024 NPS workshop. Since then, we’ve kept in touch, plotting a future printing day—either in person or online. A week later, a package arrived in my mailbox: pristine white Swedish dish cloths.
I’d never printed on Swedish dish cloths before. My fabric printing experience was limited to smooth or finely textured surfaces—tea towels, cloth napkins, and T-shirts. These dish cloths, however, had deep ridges, designed to soak up moisture and help scrub. Great for cleaning. Not so great for printing a crisp image.
Still, the idea of making something both beautiful and tough enough for dish duty hooked me. I was up for the challenge.
My first test was all about paint viscosity. I tried Versatex fabric paint, Versatex with fixative, and Speedball silk screen inks. Versatex won for application and overall look, but no matter how hard I pressed my leaves into the dish cloth, the ridges refused to disappear. The prints looked like botanical versions of the wide-wale corduroy pants I wore as a kid.
I heat-set them, washed them, and laid them out to dry. They survived the scrubbing test—but then curled up at the edges as they dried. I couldn’t commit to ironing each dish cloth into submission.
Convinced the material was the culprit, I went hunting online for smooth Swedish dish cloths. No luck. I sent CarolAnn photos and told her, “I need to dig deeper.”
In a late-night search haze, I stumbled on two possibilities: German dish cloths and bamboo towels on a roll. The photos weren’t clear enough to confirm texture, so I crossed my fingers and ordered.
The German dish cloths (light blue—apparently white wasn’t an option) had a slightly felted but mostly smooth surface.
The bamboo towels were a bit more fibrous. Both took the paint beautifully. The bamboo’s fibers gave a softer, almost dreamy image, while the German cloths printed fairly crisp and flat. Best of all, after line-drying, they stayed flat with just a hint of wrinkles—no iron required.
Sometimes the fun in printing isn’t just about the design—it’s the detective work to find the right canvas.
