Mar 26, 2008

In love with a fabric

I don't usually get this excited about commercially printed fabrics, but this one...wow! It is so odd, in a good way.
It's a skunk print surrounded by hearts (there are also anarchy symbols and the words "david & goliath" -- that's what makes it so, um, wierd!). I'm going to use this as the starting point for painted diapers and coordinating tees.
The skunk is printed in shades of grey and white, so to give her more punch, I used fabric paint to put in some lines, enhance the eyes, and added a hairbow and a heart tattoo on her belly.
This dear little skunk reminds me so much of a toddler having a temper tantrum - so angry and so cute. I'm calling this one "Love you, Little Stinker."

Mar 24, 2008

Take 3 colors and whadda you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.
No really, you can get three different shirts from just three colors plus a little resist.

I really wanted to do a giraffe. I've been sketching giraffes for a while now and just had to dye-paint one. I was thinking about what else I could do with butternut, brown and azure blue...and I saw my dh's guitar. The colors translated really well to that theme. Then with the remaining dye, a tie-dye swirl in some shades that are bright ( and thus appealing to the young man of the house) yet not the usual ones.
The next step will be adding a little detailing to the first two shirts with fabric paint but I am really excited by how these worked.

Mar 20, 2008

My kitchen table

My kitchen table is the center of our home. Is it that way at your house, too? An old butcher block table from my grandma is where we eat all our meals together, where the kids play with dough and legos, or dump their backpacks and do homework. I'm constantly wiping it down, because it's where I do all my painting too, oweing to the bright light coming through the south-facing patio doors.












Just yesterday the kitchen table was the place to be for our annual ritual of coloring eggs.












This was the first year for our littlest to get in on the fun, and boy did she enjoy all the colors.
Another nice thing is that it was not a busy weekend day but actually a relaxed weekday. DH is on spring break from teaching this year at the same time as the kids' spring break. Naturally I decided to take a spring break from the sewing machine too! But that doesn't mean I can stay away from color, oh no! I'm continuing to experiment with direct dye painting.
Here is a custom tee I recently did with water-based resist:




The final step was adding a few touches of fabric paint - at the kitchen table, of course!

Mar 11, 2008

Spotlight on: TUSH

Tush is another cloth diaper shop on Hyena Cart, and it is all about fitteds (absorbant cloth diapers that snap on) and wool covers.

This Canada-based WAHM makes some beautiful diapers that are highly sought-after, if the interest and bidding on her recent collab auctions is any indication! Of course, I am drawn to the dye work she's done. Check out the yummy softness and color in these pics:

I also can't resist posting the pic of this toile diaper. Love it!
Oh, and she's a blogger too, with lots of posts on working at home, motherhood and creative crafts-woman-ship.

Mar 7, 2008

Things to come...

I've been doing some experimenting with dye painting. Here are a couple of my test samples...

This is such a fun technique to use! While painting on diaper fabric has to be quite controlled due to how the paint goes on (very sticky, like honey) this is extremely free. Each touch of dye spreads out onto the fabric much like silk painting. It creates a sort of batik effect using waterbased resist. The trick is keeping the watery dye from leaping past the resist lines excessively...I think there is great potential here for some really neat tees. I am planning a betta fish design for 3/28 and this may be just the ticket.

In other news, I'm half done with my website redesign and really liking the new look. It's still not warm so I've got more indoor days to finish it up. Once it warms up I'm going to be outside!