Fabric Stamping Projects With Duvets

Gyotaku -- Something Fishy

• Gyotaku, an ancient Japanese printmaking art invented by fishermen to memorialize their significant catches, can be incorporated into a fabric-stamping project for a duvet cover. The process is unusual but simple; a real fish -- not a live one -- becomes the stamp. Wipe the fish on one side with alcohol to clean it. Then dab or paint the cleaned side all over with fabric ink or thinned fabric paint. Lay the fabric over the fish and press down by hand, stamping a detailed impression of the fish onto the fabric. Use a solid color or plain patterned duvet so the stamp will show up clearly. Stamp the image of one medium or large fish off-center on the top side of the cover, placing some sheets of paper or cardboard inside the cover so the color won't run through to the bottom side. When the ink or paint is dry, follow the manufacturer's instructions to set it. For fabric paint, heating the stamped image with a hairdryer will bond the paint with the fabric.

African Adinkra

• Adinkra, the African art of stamping, uses any of hundreds of symbols carved on calabash gourd to tell a story. An adinkra story can be stamped around the border of a purchased duvet cover; a cover with small print will work just as well as a plain fabric cover if the fabric paint is a strong color contrast. Traditional adinkra stamping may be all one color, like solid black images, or intricate layers of color that must be applied in steps and allowed to dry between applications. Hand-carved calabash symbols are true adinkra stamps, but reproduction symbols or personal symbol choices from available stamp images can be substituted. If stamping a story around the entire border of the duvet seems too ambitious, stamp a few interesting symbols in the center of the duvet and on a matching pillow cover.

Wax Stamping

• Wax stamping is simple and will produce multilayered designs on a duvet cover. A porous fabric with natural gleam like silk works well, but any untreated material will do. Wax stamping requires a stamp, a mix of equal parts melted paraffin and beeswax, and textile dye. A round cork or old printer's letters make good stamps.

  Begin by dyeing the cover a light color all over. When that dries, dip the stamp in the melted wax and press it on the topside of the cover in a random pattern. After the first wax stamping has cooled, brush a medium-color fabric dye over the entire design side. Then stamp the cover with wax again, overlapping some of the original stamps. One more coat of brush-on dye in the darkest color finishes the process. Iron the duvet cover between sheets of clean, white paper to remove the wax, changing the paper frequently.