Fabric Painting - Part 2

Well this is a flight of fancy that's completely taken over my sewing time! *smile* However, it's creatively stimulating and stretching me in new directions.  Also it gives me time to figure out exactly what I want to sew next...

First, I bought more paint brushes...  
I found that I needed a thick one to generally apply the dye to the fabric and a thinner one to fill in the borders and smaller spaces ~ basically two paintbrushes per color.  So I've ended up with a collection of new brushes...

I also bought more paint...
Not more shades (well one more pot of green) but a large pot of white paint to mix colors. I also bought a couple fabric markers. Though when I tried one on the fabric I didn't like how it worked. I just liked how the paint using the paintbrush applies to the fabric much better so I won't be using the fabric markers going forward. 

A few things that I've learned/relearned along the way...
Add white to any color and it makes it lighter or more pastel colored. I messed up at the beginning by trying to mix the white into the darker color. Didn't work so well and it takes some trial and error to get the lighter shades I see in my minds eye. So I've ended up with some interesting shades by doing this process.

White with a little blue mixed in

Adding a little more blue to get 

a darker shade of blue

I had to figure out a color "design" for the fabric and make sure that I paint it that way every time...especially since the fabric has a repeat pattern in it.

Mostly this just takes time...alot of time! I'm almost finished painting JUST the back piece, still have the two front pieces and the waistband to paint before I can assemble the skirt. Remarkably enough the dye hasn't changed the hand of the fabric which is good.

A few pictures of the skirt's progress...

Just starting to paint the skirt back

Adding more color...

It's almost finished.  Just need to add a little more 

color so that there aren't quite as many white spaces.

I put a lot of paint on the skirt yesterday. Now it's hanging for 24 hours to dry so that I can see where I want to add the last of the color...plus I need a break. The painting is very detailed and I have to really pay attention to what I'm doing. 

Just wanted to give an update on the fabric painting progress.

...as always more later!

Simplicity 1662 Skirt - Painting the Fabric

I posted this picture to Instagram last week and both Sheila and Oonaballoona wrote that I should paint the fabric.  At the time I posted the fabric, it was a beautiful and dramatic black and white print.  

Then I ran it through the washer and dryer (without a color catcher because why would I need one?) and ended up with this dingy piece of fabric...

All of a sudden that "painting the fabric" idea seemed really great.  Now I have some fabric paints on hand but they've been in the drawer for a little too long. So a trip through the garment district led me to SIL Threads where they did have fabric paints.  I bought five pots - red, blue, yellow, green and purple. That extra red is from the stash that actually was still okay!

After double-checking the paints, I found a white one that will work to mix colors and possibly make some pastel shades. I decided that I needed to paint a sample because I don't want to paint the entire yardage, only what I need for the skirt. Also I don't want to practice on the final garment pieces.

Here are a few pictures of the samples ~

This is going to take a minute to complete and is the first of the two projects I mentioned in my computer moan post.  The second one will be up on the blog soon.  It's not an easy project either...but I only work four days during the summer (my job has summer Fridays) so I'm up for some meaty projects after the sewcation week.

Hopefully you won't mind me sharing some progress posts cause I'm gonna need all the encouragement I can get to make it through this project! *LOL* 

...as always more later!