Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Painted fabric with a dyed look

I have a project in mind that will require little bits of lots of different colours. I came across this Bali Bonbons (top of the photo) which is comprised of 24 ....2.5"strips. I thought that this was great as there were lots of shades but did not even notice until I got home that there were no blues or oranges. So I set about to augment this group by making some gradated blues that could blend in.
It is a very simple process. Start with your darkest shade, which in this case is a Cobalt Setacolor transparent fabric paint diluted a little with water. I took slightly dampened fabric and just kept squishing it in the paint till it was completely saturated with colour, squeezed out the excess and put it aside to dry. Add a little more water to the paint/water mixture to "lighten" it and repeat the process. I continued doing this until I had these gradated shades of the same blue. While they were laid out to dry, I threw some coarse salt on to get the mottled effects.
Once heat set these are colourfast..........unlike those commercial dyes I purchased..... I tested them and they all bled, so I had to pre-wash and set the dyes before I can begin my project.
Plan to make a few oranges next.

9 comments:

Debbie said...

thank you...I didn't realize I could do graduated colors with setacolor. I will try it next painting day. btw, love your doodles and work. Very inspiring.

Terri Stegmiller said...

Lovely fabrics and a cool way to create your own!

Robbie said...

Your fabrics in blues turned out great. I just love Setacolor! You can use it straight from the bottle to paint with or dilute and use as you did. It's great but sad that Michael's doesn't sell it here anymore! :(

Diane J. Evans said...

You are brilliant! I never would have thought that this process would produce such wonderful gradations. Do you put the diluted paint in any special kind of container as you're working? And is there any magic amount of water to add each time you dilute the mixture?

Love it, love it, love it!

Diane

Jackie said...

I love it, esp with the salt, I am going to try and dye tomorrow and throw salt on... thanks for the inspiration!

Anonymous said...

They look great!

Clare Wassermann said...

aha yes a wonderful way to gradate the colour - I also need blues and oranges ....

Kim said...

How do you make it sound so darn easy!

I look forward to seeing what you come up with these beautiful fabrics.

Happy Sewing

Katie said...

Gosh these are absolutely GORGEOUS !! I can't wait to try these and thanks for the tute!!

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