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Here are the four dried and ironed pieces of fabric that I painted yesterday.

These two are particularly close, which is great if I need to use them together for a quilt back.

When I finish ironing, I like to roll it the fabrics onto a tube or cardboard bolt. In this case, I painted about 11 yards. Much of it looks similar so they will stay together on the roll.

Painting over Commercial Fabric …

I have a lot of commercial fabric that I’ve bought over the years, and I hardly use any of it anymore (except on the back of experimental quilting pieces — the stuff I use when working out a design). Periodically I give piles to my sister-in-law.  Otherwise, I like to paint over it.  It works for nearly everything –  sunprinting, monoprinting, airbrushing, and so on.  Generally whatever I’m doing to white fabric (in this case painting), I’ll consider trying on commercial fabric.  Here’s what I do:

I look for pieces that are about two yards (or more), and I look for light prints (great for overpainting). It takes just a quick eyeballing of the shelves to spy a couple contenders. Because I didn’t prewash them, chances are there is some sizing (probably dust too) on the fabric. To help remove it, I immerse the fabric in a sink filled with boiling water (yes, I boil it in a teapot) and stir it with a wooden spoon.  It’s also very helpful to add some soda ash and some Synthrapol.  Some fabrics have a brownish gunk that comes out. These fabrics didn’t seem to have noticeable gunk. After 5-10 minutes, I pour cold water into the sink so that I can ring out the water. I then toss it into the dryer.

Next I make my way to the garage via stepping over Buddy who was sunning himself on the deck.

I still have plastic down from yesterday, and it has a lot of dried paint on it. When I start painting on new fabric, I am aware that the paint from the plastic will get onto the new stuff. If I don’t want that to happen, I rinse down the plastic. Since I’m primarily working with the same colors I did yesterday, I leave it. The less I have to wash of anything, the better. Also, be sure you have lots of water around so that you can rinse your brushes as needed.

Get in the habit of saving any type of decent jar, especially if it has a lid. The jar above on the right is from a Philosophy body scrub. As an aside, you haven’t tried their bath scrubs, lotions, and potions, give them a try. They have interesting, practicably edible scents — pumpkin pie, sugar cookie, coconut frosting. My favorite is Gingerbread Man, which is what the jar is from above. I haven’t seen it lately, and I think it’s a holiday scent only around at that time of year. Okay … the point is to save those jars!  Otherwise, I’m basically doing what I did yesterday.

Our old starter house had a fantastic, full basement that was perfect for painting ad dyeing fabric. It had high ceilings, tiled floors, paneled walls, and several rooms including a laundry room with a big double sink. I use to put wooden boards on Rich’s pool table and paint. I had lightweight insulation boards with fabric drying all over the room, and sometimes I hung pieces to dry over his various weight lifting bars (which didn’t particularly thrill him, but a little paint on his weights isn’t going to hurt!). As a result, I painted, dyed, and airbrushed (airbrushing I did in the back yard) a lot of yardage over those years in that basement.

When we moved into our new home (which certainly isn’t new anymore), we were very happy with the main living area but we both made faces at the basement. It’s not a full basement, it doesn’t have utility sinks, and it’s too nicely finished rather than practically finished. In other words, it had polite-looking rooms with sofas and TVs. We wanted rugged, practical rooms for fish tanks and weights and paints and dyes. Initially we both felt reluctant to use it the way we did our old one because neither of us wanted to mess it up. Eventually we ripped out the rugs and installed tile. Out went pretty and in came a creative mess. Even so, it’s still not a good space for painting a lot of yardage. I generally only work on smaller pieces, paint on digital prints, or sometimes will paint a 1 or 2 yard piece if I move stuff around to make room for it to dry. I learned that the best way for me to paint yardage, is to go into the garage.

Some miscellaneous painted pieces.

I have a new piece that I want to quilt, but I realized I don’t have enough fabric for the backing.  It’s not that I don’t have enough fabric, mind you.  I’ve an embarrassing amount that I’ve collected over the years.  Yet, low and behold, for years I’ve been using fabric that I’ve painted for my quilt backs.

I generally paint about 10-12 yards of something neutral — generally gray with tinges of other colors.  It’s time for a new batch.  I find this coloration works for me, as it goes with nearly everything and it keeps things simple. I use it for about 75% of my quilt backs.  My mission this weekend was to paint.

First I go through some supplies. I am generally looking to see what accent colors I want to use, as I know I’ll primarily be using black.

It doesn’t take long for my dog, Buddy, to come downstairs and check out what I’m doing.

Notice the paint spots on the floor? You can just image what happened to the lovely wall to wall rug that was once in that room!

I select a Deka black (yes, I know Deka fabric paint isn’t available anymore, but I still have some), a Jacquard turquoise, and two Stewart Gill colors. I have a box full of Stewart Gills paints and highly recommend them.
I use house paint brushes to paint large pieces. I do so because I’m not painting detailed images. Instead, I’m painting sweeping strokes to cover large areas. I like house paint brushes better than foam brushes as they tend to fall apart too quickly. However, I never know when I may need them for something so I generally buy a bag full when Michael’s has them on sale 20 per dollar. I use a heavy plastic to paint on. I get it from Walmart’s fabric department. It’s sold on a roll and used for covering furniture. It’s very inexpensive, under a dollar a yard, and because it’s rolled, it’s flat (unlike the folded plastic I use to buy from Home Depo). While many do not like painting on plastic, I do. I like the different unexpected results from the paint pooling in areas.

First rule of painting in the garage is the same as the second and third rules:
Keep paint far away from the motorcycles!

My method for painting fabric for backing is very straight forward.  I mix a large batch paint and water.  I know many people have reasons for not using water.  However, I get great results with it and haven’t had any problems with it over the years.

I start by pouring paint into a jar (in this case I’m using an old Versatex paint jar). I then add water to dilute it, often using more water than paint. Many prefer using Golden’s paint extender for fabric. While I use it for some applications, I like diluting with water for this method because I tend to paint in layers which I think of as washes of color. Often it’s very time consuming, and some pieces can take me days to finish because I’ll paint, let it dry, paint again, let it dry, and so on. Because this is for quilt backs, I generally only paint once.

I start by misting white fabric (I’m using two kinds — the last of some Test Fabric 400M, which is in the picture, and some Robert Kauffman PFD fabric that I bought from Debra Lunn some years ago).  Then it’s simply a matter of painting the diluted black onto the fabric. I tend to scrunch it up the fabric and paint it in a blob (hence the house brush). After I finished with one color, I’ll then add accents of another or even a third color. In this case, I added turquoise accents. (The gloves are off … I couldn’t leave them on while taking a picture!)

Before it is dry, I open it up and hang it on a line to dry.

Once it’s dried, I iron it, and then I rinse the fabric with water.

I then put it in the washer and run the spin cycle. It then goes into the dryer.

Tomorrow I’ll post the ironed pieces (no ironing tonight!).