Hand Painted Fabric

Many sewists often find themselves in a dilema: You have a pattern that you would like to make up into a garment, but in haste, you did not buy enough fabric for the project at hand. Nothing in your fabric stash looks quite right. Your favorite store is closed or you don't feel good about buying more fabric.

I was set to create a sample from the first draft of the Blueprints debut pattern in my size and nothing I had available was right for the project.

I had a sheer cotton curtain panel, ecru in color, hanging around in my stash for the potential turn-of-the-century inspired blouse and a few tubs of Jaquard Dye-Na-Flow gifted to me by a friend/fellow textile artist. I have always wanted to create hand dyed or handpainted textiles, but the task always seemed daunting and, honestly, I was worried I would screw up perfectly good fabric in the process.

...But the curtain panel, that was relatively low risk. I pulled out the paints, threw down a dropcloth and got to work.

My experiments were, thankfully, successful. I created a simple print of color blocks, some of them outlined as small houses. I was very pleased with the scale, and the way the paint performed on the fabric: watered down and sponged allowed the squares to bleed a bit, but full strength on a small brush yielded crisp lines.

Have you ever tried hand painting fabric?