Drawing on a new fabric

I continued with my little "up-cycling duvet cover projects" and made more dresses for my little girl and a bag, until I finally ran out of the cotton pieces made from that cover. 
To my pleasant surprise, these small things I made led to few more requests of bags and gadget cases from my family and friends. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to experiment with different fabrics, and on a new one this time!

Painting on new fabric was different from the used one. Firstly because I needed to pre-treat it before I could paint on it. 

My pre-treatment of the fabric is quite simple, I first sew the edges of the fabric in zigzag to stop it from fraying. Then wash it with a washing machine like I normally wash clothes without a softener. Because softener seems to leave a coating on surface of the fabric, and may prevent the paints and dyes to lock on the fibers....resulting in discoloring after the first wash. 

After few tries I discovered that I prefer to draw on a natural material like cotton or linen, because the colour appears more vibrant and also the paints seem to engage better with the fibers. 

When I finish with the drawing I usually leave it over a night to make sure it is completely dry, then heat fasten the colour by ironing it. Next, I wash the fabric to remove the excess paints and dyes. After the first wash, whatever you see usually stays. 
  

I also tried on T-shirts, which ended up as a disaster at first. I was starting by painting outlines with a felt tip pen type of paints at that time, but drawing on a stretchy fabric meant that you cannot apply a pressure on the fabric otherwise would smear easily. So I now use brushes only on t-shirts to draw. 

So this is how my experiments with new fabrics turned out. Discoveries one after another, and so much fun! 

Visit my gallery of past little projects <here>! :) 

the First dress for my little girl

So the fabric is ready now <the  previous article>. And I've decided that I want to make a little summer dress for my little girl with it.
Light weight cotton is a good material for it. And I always wondered why there aren't enough dresses for little girls with large prints!

First I have to make a pattern of the dress. I picked one of her dress that is most close to the shape I want to make. Then drew an outline of half the dress on a newspaper. Placing this under a tracing paper and start altering the shape whilst maintaining the original size. Transfer this new shape on a thicker paper by drawing an outline of it or stick it directly on a thicker paper and make your new pattern.

I used a parchment paper instead of a tracing paper. ( this is a little trick i picked up from the architectural school. Very useful when you don't have a tracing paper at home)
I also recycled a thick sketchbook paper that kids had scribbled with.

A little rough on sewing, but here it is! It was all worth it because she loved it and she looked lovely in it :)