Originally Posted by kellen46
No commercial, just me playing with my fabrics. Every year I take some time to dye Tee Shirts for my family, I also dye socks, yarn, trims and fabric while I am at it. I only do it once a year and it only takes me two days so that is not too bad. I like to dye a half and then take the halves and turn them into two fat quarters, I then over embellish one quarter. It is sort of fun to do and to have for projects. I also found an easy low mess way to create painted fabrics so every now and then I do that, it is all just play.
Hi kellen, any chance of a tute on how you do your low-mess dying? BTW, goes without saying, I love your fabric packs.
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It could not be simpler...
you need, plain white fabric, water, inexpensive acrylic craft paint, a pie tin.
I put a fat quarter in a regular pie tin, more fabric requires a larger container. A rectangular cake pan will take a yard. I prefer glass, so look for some in the thrift shop to dedicate to this. Plastic will work also.
mix paint and water about half and half. Darker colors work better than pastels.
Wet the fabric and wring out excess water. Fill container about three quarters full with paint water mix. I mix water and paint right in the container. Sometimes I will swirl in a bit of full strength paint in a contrast color. Not too much though. Now scrunch up the fabric and place in the container making sure you have lots of peaks and valleys. The paint will migrate to the creases and give a darker tint there. Wait a couple of hours and rearrange peaks and valleys, repeat once more. Leave set over night. rinse until water runs clear, wring out all the excess water you can, heat set with hot dry iron. Actually I just iron the whole piece dry. You are done. This is a fun craft to do with kids as it really is very low mess, the hard part is waiting for the paint to set. Wash and dry as usual, color fast after heat setting.
Now the fun part, over stamp with color fast ink. Free hand draw with permanent ink pens, make dots with a sharpie marker, or try this. Get a metallic craft paint and a fan brush, use a small amount of paint on brush to get a dry brush effect. Swish on spots of color here and there. Sometimes I just write words. Stencil with paint sticks and by all means cook a few meals in advance because once you start you will be having so much fun you will not want to stop for a while. If you have trouble writing or stamping on the fabric then iron it to a piece of freezer paper to stabilize it. Play!