First I cut out a square of screen mesh (you can buy this from George Weil, or just use net curtain fabric) and put it over the inner hoop of an embroidery hoop:
Then I trimmed the screen mesh and put the 'screen' face down over an image I wanted to trace, and traced it onto the screen mesh with a pencil (the pencil doesn't show very well in this photo, but I could see it well enough to paint over the lines).
Next I painted over the pencil lines using screen drawing fluid (the blue-coloured liquid in these photos, made by Speedball), left the drawing fluid to dry, then spread some screen filler (also by Speedball, you can get it online) over the screen using a plastic card.
The front of the screen (where I spread the screen filler) will now have some filler over the blue drawing fluid image, but if you check the back (inside) of the screen, you should still be able to see your drawing fluid painted image clearly, without too much screen filler blobbing over the edges of your image. As long as you can see your image from the back of the screen, it should wash out ok...
I left the screen filler to dry (you can speed up the process with a hairdryer) then held the screen up to the light, to check if there were any holes in the screen filler, and painted over these with some screen filler and a small paintbrush.
When all the screen filler was dry, I just washed out the drawing fluid under the tap. You can use a fingernail or toothbrush to pick off any bits of screen filler that are blocking your stencil, then hold the screen up to the light to check that your drawing fluid image has washed out...
Your embroidery hoop screen is now ready for printing!
