How to Paint your own Gradated Fabrics......The Basics

In case you thought it was a difficult process and that I was kidding when I say it's simple to do, I thought I'd just take you through it step by step.
First of all, don't worry if you don't have the same sophisticated equipment I use......I am sure you have something that will work.
You will need to round up a container to actually mix the paint in ( here I used the "lid" from a store bought cake ) but any plastic container that gives you lots of room to splash will work, gather up some paper towels, an old raggedy towel to protect your work surface, some rubber gloves, a container of water, something to measure with (I used one of those little cups that come with cough medicine), a sheet of plastic ( I used a clear leaf bag cut open), stir sticks or Popsicle sticks to scoop out the paint from your measuring cup(don't want to waste a drop), coarse salt ( optional) and of course some white pre-washed cotton fabric.
Okay, so after you have eaten the cake and Popsicles you are ready to begin.
This time, I actually measured everything (I normally just eyeball it)
For this session my fabric pieces are essentially fat eights, each measuring 9 x 22 inches but of course once you get the hang of it, you can easily increase the amount of paint/water mixture to accommodate larger pieces of fabric.I measured 12.5 ml ( 1 Tablespoon) of pure paint and into the bowl it went followed by 7.5ml of water. Swirl it around to mix it all up and throw in your first piece of fabric. This will be your darkest most saturated piece. Sop up the paint mixture and squeeze out the excess ( back into the bowl of course) do this a few times to be sure you have good colour throughout your fabric. Again, be sure to really squeeze out the excess, you don't want to waste anything and you won't want to wait forever for your fabric to dry. Now take this piece and lay it out flat on your plastic sheet. ( I lay my plastic on a piece of Styrofoam so it is easy to pick up and move should I need to)
You are now ready to create the next shade, add another 7.5ml of water ( or just a wee bit less) to your paint mixture, swirl it around to mix well and toss in your next piece of fabric. Repeat as before, sopping up paint and squeezing out the excess.

Just keep repeating this same process with each consecutive piece of fabric, adding that extra water each time to continue to dilute the mixture. See how my last bit of paint looked......very weak but just right for my lightest shade.Once you have laid all of your pieces of painted fabric out to dry, you can decide if you want add some salt. Sprinkling a bit of coarse salt (pickling salt) onto your damp fabric will cause some interesting effects. The salt will "draw" the paint and move it about, a little goes a long way.......and you never really know what you will end up with or you can just leave it be as a "solid" and skip the salt altogether.
That's it, just clean up your little mess ( I rinse everything thoroughly with warm water in the laundry sink and re-use it time after time)
Okay, now you have to wait for the fabric to dry so you might as well go see if there is any of that cake left.
Once your fabrics are dry, you will need to "Heat Set" them to make them permanent. Simply press for a few minutes with a hot iron. ( if you used the salt, you may need to scrape/pick off the dried crystal that remain before heat setting")
Sometimes, ( okay, most times) I get a little carried away with the salt and will need to rinse my fabric after heat setting to get all of the salt completely out.
Here is the result of this paint session that created these gradated oranges.