In a largely failing attempt to distract myself from impatiently anticipating the upcoming labor, I made swaddling blankets.
Leaf Printed
Inspired by Leslie Keating’s tutorial, I armed myself with unbleached muslin from JoAnn’s, a small variety of leaves (maple, tulip poplar, elm), acrylics, Fabric Medium, a glass bottle instead of a roller – and spent several hours telling myself to leave some white space between the colorful leafy awesomeness.
Lessons learned:
- To keep hue per leaf consistent throughout, mix more pigment than you think you need;
- More water = thinner layer of paint = better detail of veins;
- Heat-set, HEM, then wash;
Dyed
Guided by MustHaveMom’s tutorial and instructions on Rit Liquid Dye bottles, I hemmed four 45×45 inch white muslin squares, and then basically cooked each for 40 minutes on medium heat in a steel 8 liter pot. I winged various combinations of Aquamarine and Wine hues to get the colors you see below.
Wild Naiada 
Love the leafy ones! They will hold up in multiple washes?
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You know, they’re technically supposed to, since they were heat set and such – but I guess we’ll quickly see 🙂
The only other time I used the acrylic w/ fabric paint mix was when making an apron for my mom, on cotton canvas, which was a very heavy fabric; I also used a paint mix that wasn’t very watered down so it didn’t seep through the fabric – so I have a suspicion that if she were to wash it often, it would wear off slowly because it adhered to the surface of the fabric, rather than the full layer. Except she’s trying to avoid dirtying the apron, and so barely uses it, and so isn’t likely to wash it often 😛
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