Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Flickr Friends Guest Post: Stephanie from Pinafores and Pinwheels


Hey there! I'm Stephanie, and you can find me over at my blog Pinafores & Pinwheels. I'm from the Atlanta area and am a lucky stay at home mom to two adorably crazy {and I mean crazy!} kids, wife to a wonderful hubby, a DIY-er, crafter, seamstress, Pinterest addict, and a total worrywart! I am new to the blog world and I am so honored to have the amazing ladies from Simple Simon & Co. invited me to guest post! I have been following Project Run & Play from the start and was so excited to be able to participate in the sew-along, it was an amazing experience and made me create things I never thought I could. Before Project Run & Play I never would have sewn any boys clothing, outerwear or make my own fabric! I suggest everyone sew-along next time! I hope you come on over to Pinafores & Pinwheels and say hey (as we all do in the south)!

Photobucket


One of the challenges from this season of Project Run & Play was to design an outfit based on a color. I wasn't inspired by any fabrics, which was making it hard to design something, so I decided to try my hand at making my own....on Wednesday...Friday at 8 was the deadline....probably not the best plan. I was going to ombre dye something purple, but it's sooooo popular right now that I couldn't bring myself to do it. The lovely Audrey Hepburn came to my rescue with Funny Face and the 'Think Pink' song. Hello, inspiration!

I wanted the look to scream a color and this definitely does! Think Pink!
ThinkPink! Dress
finished skirt 

The possibilities for this are endless, I'm itching to try some more ideas! For this fabric I used a light pink 100% cotton and rit dye. Prepare your fabric according to the dye instructions.

supplies

I cut out my skirt fabric and sewed the front and back together so I would know exactly where I needed the words to be. Lay out your fabric on a flat surface where nothing will be able to disturb it for a few hours. I laid mine out on our patio table on top of a cheap plastic tablecloth. Make sure to secure anything that you are laying your fabric on top of so it doesn’t blow around and land on top of your fabric. Which would be baaaaad! See that regular old WASHABLE Elmer’s school glue up there? Take it and draw any design you so desire. Obviously I wrote “Think Pink” about a billion times. The design you draw will stay the original color of the fabric, make sure you take that into account.
Start of writing 
all writing
Make sure it is COMPLETELY dry! I let mine dry overnight since the glue was so thick. It will look like this.
dried glue
Now it’s time to dye it and make it fabulous! I didn’t follow the directions. Yep, that’s right, me…not following directions, craziness! I didn’t want to soak the fabric in the dye for 30 minutes because the glue would start to dissolve and basically ruin everything. So I made the dye concentrated to dye it faster. Instead of mixing the pack of dye with 3 gallons of water I only used 1.5 gallons. Add your fabric and pray. 
dye
Keep a close eye on the glue and make sure it isn’t softening up. Take it out when the color looks good and rinse it following your dye directions. The glue will be all slimy and gross. My glue was so thick that I laid the fabric out again and scraped the thicker parts off with a butter knife and rinsed it again. Once it seemed like the glue was gone, I threw it in the washer on gentle and dried it with air only. I ended up with this fabulousness! Dying of cute!
Close-up finished 
finished fabric
Use as desired! This is the Project Run & Play dress that I made with it.  
skirt front
back
whole dress
I’d love to see any projects you make using this process, go to Pinafores & Pinwheels and shoot me an e-mail with pictures, I’d love to feature you! I hope you try it!  And another HUGE thank  you to the Simple Simon & Co. ladies for having me!
dressPhotobucket

Related Posts

16 comments :

  1. This is so cool! Now that's some creative thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my word, I love this idea!! Thanks for the great tutorial, just might need to try this!
    Amy
    www.hankorange.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now that is creative thinking! I love the fabric you made!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Awesome, Awesome, Awesome! I think for a summer fun project, I'll have each of the girls do the gluing on their own piece of fabric, so it's extra unique to them!

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Add your fabric and pray" . . .that's hilarious! Sounds so much like my approach to crafting. Great tutorial!

    ReplyDelete
  6. You're a genius! Thank you for the tutorial.

    ReplyDelete
  7. oh what a great technique! i would have never thought to use glue - awesome! thanks stephanie!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love this! I'm so going to try it!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Do you have a tutorial for making the skirt? I love the skirt---the combo of the fabric and the paperbag type skirt is perfect! Thanks for this, I'm pinning! =)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Darling! I thought I read about using the blue glue but could never find it. I'm excited to know that regular white glue works too!! Great tutorial!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sounds messy, but amazing!!! I will have to try that! And glad to know another southerner! I'm in Columbia! :) Great job girlfriend!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you all so much! And another HUGE thanks to liZ and Elizabeth for having me here!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Love this print & technique. Beautiful photos, so pretty in pink:)

    ReplyDelete
  14. I absolutely LOVE this dress! Super darling!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I love this tutorial....I think it would work great on t shirts too ! Which is great because I suck at iron on lettering and baby girl needs some name tees :)

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.