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Screen-printing: giant beachy polka dots

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My latest screen-printing project  :)
Searching for design inspiration, I randomly set myself a theme.  The beach!  I sketched out several ideas and variations, some abstract some more literal, and spent ages agonising over which one I should do... aaargh, so indecisive!!  Eventually settled on this very simple and abstract one, obviously! since we are really pushed for time and space in our class and it's best not to to turn up with very ambitious ideas.  I had to finish this one at home since I only managed to get halfway through in class.  But I am seriously considering setting up at home to print at least one of my other beach-related ideas too.
I used a lovely lightweight cotton/linen from Spotlight, in a soft sandy shade.  This is probably the nicest, classiest fabric I have printed so far.  It was scary, but I felt ready to take a risk.
The colour palette (6 colours) :
The dots are all printed using the same imperfect circle template, but oriented different ways so they don't look identical to each other.
Funny moment; my friend J, with whom I am doing the class, on seeing my stencil "um, it's a hole?"
When printing I tried to vary the visual texture of the dots; at times I did a scanty pull, to get scratchy dots, at other times I put together blobs of slightly different shades of the colours without mixing properly, to get streaked or blotchy dots.
Before class, I cut out all my pattern pieces and tacked an accurate 11cmx11cm grid all over each piece.  When printing the dots I placed the screen just slightly off every now and again, because I like how a little imperfection makes the design look more casual and fun.  Plus, wonky designs are the beginner screen-printer's best friend!!
The whole shebang...
Thoughts: I am super happy with how the print turned out! and am pretty excited to see how the final garment will look.  I'm motivated to sew it up quickly, because my teacher specifically asked me to show it at our next class.. which will be our last!  Yes, I'm a little sad that my weekly class is going to end, but this isn't going to be the end of my screen-printing adventures, that's for sure!

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