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Painting with fabric

Today I decided to paint with fabrics using my version of the confetti quilting technique.


Throughout the year I collect all the remants from projects and store them according to color families. I normally use the prettier ones to create fabric beads but I have a lot.


Looking at them in their bottles made me think of paints. So today I decided to experiment with a fabric landscape and I am going to share the tutorial with eveyone.


Fabric paints
Fabric paints


The pieces are too small to sew.



Orange fabric confetti
Orange fabric confetti


So I decided to make them even smaller.



Blue fabric confetti
Blue fabric confetti


I wanted to make a landscape picture sort of twilight blending down to a pale green garden. These are the colors that I chose from the bottles of scraps



Landscape colors
Landscape colors



The first thing that I did was to lay down three pieces of cotton sheeting on a layer of a plastic bag.



Cotton sheeting on a layer of plastic
Cotton sheeting on a layer of plastic


I then took a botle of pva - plastic white glue



PVA glue
PVA glue


And diluted it with water till I had a thin mixture.



Diluted glue
Diluted glue


I then coated the fabric with a thin layer of diluted glue



A layer of glue on the sheeting
A layer of glue on the sheeting


Then the fun began. I sprinkled some of the darker blue fabrics in a random manner over the top area of the sheeting.



Sprinkling dark blues
Sprinkling dark blues


Pressed the pieces down with a damp cloth



Pressing down onto the glue
Pressing down onto the glue


then sprinkled purples in between and lower down on the sheeting



Layering purple scraps
Layering purple scraps


Continued with the colors till it looked like this. Not all the pieces are glued down.



Confetti landscape
Confetti landscape


I laid another plastic bag over the top



A top layer of plastic
A top layer of plastic

And then puit some weights on it. I will wait for it to dry overnight and tomorrow I will take the plastic off and shake it out so that the pieces that are not glued will fall off.


Its an experiment I am curious to see how many pieces remain affixed to it. If there are huge gaps I will stitch some fabric pieces down to cover them and then I will layer a piece of tulle over and randomly top stitch.


I have some white and black tulle. I think I will use the black because from what I have read the black intensifies the color whereas the white tulle flattens or deadens it.


We will see tomorrow. I will keep you posted of the progress.


Waiting for it to dry
Waiting for it to dry

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3 comentarios


Tomi Speed
Tomi Speed
06 abr 2021

What is the reason for 3 layers of sheeting? Are you saturating all three layers with the glue?

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Sharon Prigan
Sharon Prigan
12 jul 2021
Contestando a

The sheeting absorbs the glue and also serves as batting when I quilt the art work.

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Pauline McEwen
Pauline McEwen
06 abr 2021

hi there, I've always used fusible web instead of glue for my confetti fabric but I will try this today :)

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