This project is about creating inks and pastes for stamping that can be used as a sustainable alternative for customizing packaging and conference materials such as tote bags, posters, lunch boxes e.t.c.
We experimented on the production of black ink from pomegranate peels applied on various surfaces (cotton fabric, paper) with different types of stamps (ewa foam, rubber, wood).

The technique originates from medieval Europe and was also used traditionally for a long time for dyeing oriental carpets. Due to
high concentration of tannin in the pomegranate and ease of production, it is currently having a renaissance. 
It can be used as an ink for silkscreen printing, calligraphy or textile printing.


The experiments were carried out with differently proportioned ink-rubber mixtures. Furthermore, we tested the effect of vinegar as an additional base solution for preserving the dye.
Basis for our evaluation was the color intensity, the distribution of the ink, the sharpness of contours and the detail of the stamps.
The stamps were laser engraved and cut. The files were images in png format or vectors and various tests for adjusting the laser power were conducted.
To mix your ink, you  can optionally use a magnetic stirrer or mix it by hand with a spoon and heat it to speed up  the dissolution of the gum. Do not boil the ink.  

Adding iron changes the color of the pomegranate liquor to deep black.  Vinegar has no effect on the result, but it can still be used as a preservative. 
Gum arabic and guar gum improve the consistency of the ink (the more viscous the ink, the better the results for stamping on fabric).

1. Recipe – most suitable for rubber and Ewa foam stamps on paper

 
Stamping Remix El Barrio logo for creating a foodwaste biomaterial kit for workshops.

Ingredients: 

- 25 ml pomegranate dye
- 1,5 teaspoons gum arabic
- 3 pinches of iron
- optional: small amount of vinegar

Implementation:

- mix the pomegranate dye and the gum arabic until everything dissolved
- add the iron and stir the solution
- optional: add the vinegar
- the ink had to be very viscous, almost like syrup
- cast half of the mixture onto the ink pad
- spread the ink using the roller
- the stamp has to be pushed onto the ink pad so that the letters are fully covered with ink - apply the stamp onto the ground material, putting slowly the stamp on and press down evenly  with a lot of force 

2. Recipe – most suitable for ewa foam and wooden stamps on fabric

Ingredients:
- 50 ml pomegranate dye
- a pinch guar gum
- 4 pinches of iron

Implementation:
- mix the pomegranate dye and the guar gum until everything dissolved
- add the iron and stir the solution
- the ink had to be very viscous, almost like syrup
- cast the mixture onto the ink pad
- spread the ink using the roller
- the stamp has to be pushed onto the ink pad so that the letters are fully covered with ink - apply the stamp onto the ground material, putting the stamp slowly on and pressing down evenly. You can optionally scour the fabrics beforehand.

LIST OF MATERIALS
Ingredients:  - pomegranate ink (water based)  - gums (gum arabic, guar gum)  - iron  - water   - optional: vinegar  
Tools:  - ink pad (flat tray with specific material to hold the ink)  - roller for applying and spreading the ink in the tray  - teaspoon  - glass wares (200 ml)  - magnetic stirrer (optional) 
Materials:  - paper  - cotton fabric   - for the stamps: rubber for laser engraving, wood, ewa foam

This research was developed by Anastasia Pistofidou and Pauline Stockmann during her internship at FabTextiles in December 2021.

Many thanks to all the valuable online references:

• https://www.marthastewart.com/1516423/natural-ink-colors
• www.wildcolours.co.uk/html/pomegranate.html
• http://theaxbridgemuseumartistsblog.weebly.com/pomegranate-ink.html
• https://www.suzannedekel.com/post/how-to-make-ink
• https://juliabausenhardt.com/how-to-make-pomegranate-ink-self-made-iron-gall-ink/
• https://www.marthastewart.com/1516423/natural-ink-colors

Honoring the Earth Day on the 22nd of April 2020 with BIO RIOT! , worn by Jessica Guy  at the strike against climate this past September in Barcelona!

Made with the same recipe of the Coffee Leather Bag, one can find the file to download the pattern here

Your waste is my treasure!

Working with organic waste can bring circular solutions  for the implementation of closed loops of organic feedstocks.  At Fab Textiles we have been working with food waste since October 2018 and many researchers through their internship developed and evolved recipes for making food waste biocomposites.  There are already some small companies that produce bioleathers with waste, one of them from Mexico called ECOPLASO that I had the possibility to get to know in one of my conferences at ¨Demand Solutions¨ in Miami 2018.

RECIPE / COFFEE BIOLEATHER

2G sodium alginate
2G dried coffee grains of any organic waste in powder
2G olive oil
5G glycerin
33G water 
(everything is in grams using a precision scale)

MIX for calcification
7G of calcium chloride in 100ml of water

Various organic waste bio-leather samples

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS:

1- Weight all the ingredients with a precision scale.
2- Mix the powder together with the glycerin and the olive oil.
3- Add the water and use a mechanical blender to obtain an homogeneous solution.
4- Cast in a silk screen print frame ( you can create your own using any textile and wood)
5- Mix the Calcium chloride with water in a sprayer bottle.
6- Spray the biomaterial on top and bottom with the calcium chloride solution.
7- Let the calcium chloride act for 5´ and rinse with clean water.
8- Let the composite sample dry in a dry and warm place for one week. Depending on the thickness and the size of the sample it may take longer. It will also vary due to the local temperature and humidity.
9- When the product is dry you can separate it from the frame.

Note: As the sample dries, it can become curved, so place it between two level surfaces and some weight on top so at the end we can obtain a really flat sheet

The laser cut pattern can be found and downloaded HERE

This year the team FabTextiles (Fab Lab Barcelona) of Anastasia Pistofidou and Clara Davis participated to the Maker Faire Barcelona 2017.

Maybe you are wondering what is a MakerFaire ? A Maker Faire is a world event gathering makers : creators, innovative craftsmans, inventors and engineers. This Maker Movement is about using technology, creating new ways to produce together, learning how to do it yourself for changing our industry. The first Maker Faire was established by Dale Dougherty, one of the creators of Make Magazine, in San Mateo, California, in 2006. The goal is to introduce to the people the latest inventions and innovations, to teach them how to do it themselves with workshops, to discuss with them about different topics and to allow makers to meet each other and share their knowledge.

  Fab Textiles stand at the Barcelona Maker Faire 2017

For the Maker Faire Barcelona 2017, FabTextiles presented :

• three pieces of the ECOcyborg collection thought by Alex-Murray Leslie, a collaborative work with IED school and FabTextiles (Fab Lab Barcelona)
• a laser cut parametric origami hat and two seamless garment design by Anastasia Pistofidou
• a 3d printed top assembled by Clara Davis
• a bioplastic collection of accessories created by Aldana Persia and Clara Davis

Three looks of the ECOcyborg collection tought by Alex-Murray Leslie, a collaborative work with IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) Barcelona and Fab Textiles (Fab Lab Barcelona). First look, electroluminescent woven shoulder piece on top of a laser cut petticoat. Second look, retro-futuristic biopastic shirt made with ultraviolet colors pigments. Third look, 3d printed chainmail coating dress.

3d printed top, chainmail assembled by Clara Davis, you can follow the DIY on this page.

Bioplastic Collection of accessories created by Aldana Persia & Clara Davis

FabTextiles showed but also shared. On their booth, they revealed to the public The secrets of bioplastic and gave the opportunity to learn how to do it yourself by distributing the recipe used for the Bioplastic Collection. Anastasia Pistofidou animated the discussion about embedding digital and Bio Technology in Fashion and Clara Davis gave two workshops : learn how to fold a stone paper origami hat and create your own jewelry with the bioplastic collection waste.

   Workshops : learning how to fold a parametric stone paper origami hat and creating jewelry with bioplastic collection waste.

Thanks to the FabTextiles team : Anastasia Pistofidou, Clara Davis, Aldana Persia and Sabina Micheli

ECOcyborg is a fashion tech show created by Alex-Murray Leslie and the students of the IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) Barcelona. This artistic performance is about the impact of technologies in our way of creating, producing and consuming today. The show took place in the Youth Mobile Festival (YoMo) during the Mobile World Congress 2017 (27 February – 2 March) in Barcelona.

During the last two months, the team of FabTextiles collaborated on this project by designing and producing materials used for making the garments of the show : bioplastics, 3d printed fabrics, thermoformed acrylic masks, laser cut textiles, weaving with electroluminescent threads… Alex-Murray Leslie (founder of Chicks on Speed, an internationally renowned art band) during the performance “ECOcyborg” at the YoMo Festival 2017.

• BIOPLASTIC WORK : USING BIODEGRADABLE MATERIAL AS A FABRIC (You can find more information about bioplastic in this previous post → The secrets of Bioplastic) Anastasia Pistofidou and Alex-Murray Leslie creating bioplastic in FabTextiles and Materials Lab.

We cooked a huge quantity of bioplastic with gelatin base for making a flat piece of 2000×1500 mm. Adding ultraviolet colors pigment inside the mixture to make the bioplastic shining in the dark. This bioplastic piece was used by the students of IED Barcelona to create a futuristic shirt for the show.

Anna Masclans, a student from the IED school interning in the FabTextiles, create a new type of material by combining wastes of fabrics with bioplastic. A nice way to recycle the textile leftovers when people make garments inside fashion schools. Her samples were used as patchwork for one look in the show.

• 3D PRINTED FABRICS : USING SOFTWARE AND 3D PRINT MACHINE FOR CREATING GARMENTS

Anastasia Pistofidou design on the software Rhinoceros and Grasshopper a chain for printing in 3D.  The 3D printed chain like textile allows to print a pattern made of small rigid volumes that assembled together becomes a flexible material. The students from IED Barcelona took the chain for making the coating of a dress.

• THERMOFORMED ACRYLIC : It’s possible to deform an acrylic sheet by heating it up to 160degrees and using a vacuum forming machine. You can give to the acrylic sheet the shape you want by using a mold. For creating those thermoformed acrylic masks Anastasia Pistofidou 3Dmodel a human face made in MakeHuman software. The next step is to CNC mill the piece of PU high density foam (can be negative or positive. After, the 2d pattern is laser cut on an acrylic sheet of 3mm and finally heated-up and placed it on the foam face and put it under the vacuum forming machine.

• WOVEN ELECTROLUMINESCENT THREADS : During the last day of the Textile Bootcamp Academy, a group mentored by Alex-Murray Leslie developed a woven piece that embedded Corning Fibrance Light-Diffusing Fibers from Versalume, reflective textiles and recycling elements like plastics bags and packaging papers. The loom used for creating the weaving was laser cut and built in the Fab lab from an open source file found in instructubles. The final woven piece became a shoulder piece inside a laser cut petticoat.
  

Inside the FabTextiles Lab we question ourselves about the future of textiles, technology and try to find hands ON ways to change the fashion industry. We using technology to create our own tools and discover new materials.

«Ha sido increíble colaborar con Anastasia Pistofidou y Fab Lab Barcelona en la creación de nuevos textiles hechos de materiales ecológicos, para el wearable tech fashion show que estoy dirigiendo para YOMO»
Alex Murray-Leslie

Fabtextiles team : Anastasia Pistofidou, Anna Masclans, Aldana Persia, Laura Ramos & Clara Davis

PRESS:

This project was conceived as a way to recycle previously used material into newly designed laptop bags. The material was provided from old canvas boards used for the My Very Own City (MVOC) exhibition that were designed and fabricated in the Fab Lab back in 2012.

The concept of the design was driven by the idea of creating a bag without using conventional sewing methods and instead rely only on digitally fabricated methods.

This collection is limited to 90 individual pieces that each have their own unique character and design and implement laser cutting as well as 3D printing techniques

Each bag has the ability to be folded in either of two ways and an instruction kit was made in order to allow the user to fold and wear the bag as they please.

Option 01.

Option 02.

Download the open-source fabrication file here: LabBag