Restocking the Drawer of Magical Things

Remember when I made these cards and I talked about the pearl painted fabric that I pulled out of the Drawer of Magical Things (DMT)? While rooting around in the drawer I realized that I was low on these metallic fabrics that I made YEARS ago.

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I don't do much fabric painting anymore because I'm so allergic to the VOC offgassing of things like paint and grout. When I do those things I have to wear a respirator and will still have issues. I get asthma and everything smells of burned wood for 3 or 4 days. It's gross. 
But occasionally it's worth it.
It's been so long since I painted fabric though that many of my paints were about to dry up. I decided that I needed to use then while I could still revive them. Fabric paints are water based so all you need to do is add water to them and mix really good to get the lumps out.

Since I couldn't dye yesterday I pulled some fabrics from the stash and tried to use up a lot of paints. I mostly use Jacquard fabric paints. They have some terrific metallic and pearlized paints.

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I wrote a tutorial for this several years ago that you can download here. If you intend to use metallic painted fabrics in a project that will be washed you will want to read this post on curing the paints.

This is a great way to revive old fabrics that you don't like anymore. Yesterday I just pulled out some hand dyes from my stash.

They start with damp fabric, scrunched or pleated and then I get busy with multiple layers of paint. I rearrange the fabric between paint applications. 

​Here are my results from a very fun day.

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I love the pleated effects. Most of these will be used in future postcard designs but they are also great for little projects like book covers or zipper pouches.

Since I used the pearlized fabric for my postcard I wanted to make sure to make more of that so have 3 white/near white fabrics.

Mostly, though, I did scrunched versions in lots of different colors. I've got no plans for any of them. I just had fun and used up a lot of paint.

Eighteen different fabrics in all! That was so much fun. Everything will smell like burned wood for a few days but it was worth it.

The DMT is restocked and now it's time to get back to the Groovy quilt.