Handpainted, multi-tiered skirt: ta-dah!

Skirt front or back depending on what color top I wear.

This little skirt took about three weeks of little bits of time to put together.
The fabric painting was spread out over my lunch times at home. I could easily spread out a damp piece of fabric, open the slightly watered down paints and paint lines before having tea and a grilled cheese sandwich.

Or, if I was in the mood, I'd iron a panel or two to set the paint.

I made several panels and suddenly found myself impatient to begin putting the skirt together.

Skirt back? It's nice to have options...

First, a bias cut yoke for the top tier makes the skirt very comfortable to wear and it drapes nicely over round hips.

Next. Cut lots of six inch strips. I'm never sure how many I will use, so I cut at least 24. These were all 36 inches across.

Sew a few strips together and then begin the gathering. I have a gathering foot for my Janome machine and have learned that though it is the absolute easiest way to gather fabric, it is somewhat of a guessing game.

It works according to the stitch length and stitch tension settings. Big stitches and tight tension equals lots of gathers. However, the weight of the fabric is the one factor
that is the mysterious variable. You'd think that the heavier the fabric the more difficult it would be to gather under the foot.
Yes and no. I've made a few skirts of batik cotton and with each one, the machine settings were different for the amount of gathering that would be created.

Since this hand painted fabric was a very light muslin, I figured I'd have to go with less tension.
Not sew!

This fabric just didn't want to gather easily!!!
And it wasn't that the paint was in the way. This fabric paint is virtually unnoticeable on the fabric. I just does not change the "hand" of it at all. I'm sorry now that I was too tentative with my settings. I was afraid I would run out of fabric before getting to the last tier and so I ended up with a skirt that is not as "swingy" as I'd like.
My impatient self was very glad to finish with the elastic waist.
My perfectionistic self was unhappy with the final product.
Next: Fuchsia circles.

Pentel Dye Sticks

This morning I got an e-mail from Dharmatrading.com with the usual funny note about all the amazing stuff they have to color fabric. They sell everything you could possibly need to change plain fabric or clothing into something amazing.
One of the links led me to a video previously shown on You Tube about using Pentel dye sticks.
I was inspired!
I've had the dye sticks in my box of fabric paints, but have not done much with them.

I'm one of those people who order stuff on the net because I'm excited to try something and by the time it gets delivered, I've already moved onto something else.

Not a good trait.

However, it is so nice to have supplies right there when the urge to play comes back!

Today I took a pillow case right out of the linen closet and set to work.

Yeah, yeah, I know the fabric is supposed to be "scoured" and not a bit of fabric softener or other fragrant things are "allowed".

All the books say any softening agent will prevent color from sticking. But have you noticed how when you are painting and get some on your clothes, NONE of it comes OFF.

sigh.

So, back from my morning walk, still seeing that little three minute video in front of my frontal cortex eyes, I find a small padded quilting thingy and stretch the pillow case over it so the fabric will stay in place as I work.

I must say I had a fine 30 minutes making these flowers. The dye sticks are so creamy! The red, pink, yellow and orange for the flower just glided onto the cotton. Two greens made a nice stem and leaf and I was ready to repeat.

The only problem I had was that since I work in my garage/studio, it tends to be the same temperature as outside. This morning it is about 76 degrees and the dye sticks are very soft. They got on my fingers and I had to be careful about leaving smudges.

However, smudges and imperfections are part of the beauty of anything that is handmade, so I didn't stress about it.

And, seeing a small crumb loose on the pillow case just lead to another flower near the top.

I'm going to let this this sit for a day and then heat set it.

This is going to look very pretty on our bed.

More! More! I HAVE to make more! This is really fun. Thanks Dharmatrading, for setting my soul alight.

Hand painted stuff -

Have you ever visited Alisa Burke's blog? She has fun stuff to do all the time. Fun classes based on her book and all kinds of new crafty things to make or just look at and admire.
Go there - http://alisaburke.blogspot.com/ as soon as you can.

She is amazing.

Inspired by her "messy painting" techniques, I washed a couple of canvas totes that were beige and boring and turned them into these colorful bags.

This bag is for my "stuff". I got a lot of practice doing stencil painting and was surprised at how much I liked it.


Of course, following Melisa's lead, everything is supposed to be messy, so no rules are broken when you have blurred images.

Yeah! Freedom!










This is the first one I painted and got really strung out on hot pink and orange. Oh, how I love hot pink and orange.

See the black drips? Another very freeing technique that is fine to do on canvas because it is so sturdy.

It just doesn't matter that all this craft paint makes the tote a little stiff at first. Using it softens it right up.


This is the back. Looks like it could be the front, it's so pretty.

I also got some little totes to give to my grandchildren with matching coin purses, too.

If I stuff them with books, candy, toys and money, maybe they will actually use them!