Thursday, June 6, 2013

Witches Stitches - Ageing fabric with Paint and Sanding


Hello all,

I am sorry but this is going to be a short one this week. I am in NJ, (I live in NC), taking care of family business.  
If you are a lover of prim like I am, the more prim it looks the more I like it. There is something so wonderful about a piece of furniture that has peeling paint or doll with a well-worn look. I like to think about who may have used or played with it over the years and what their story is. 

When I make my cloth dolls I tea dye them then I paint and sand them. This gives them a great aged look. Through trial and error this is the steps I use.

1 – Sew and stuff your doll.

2 – Tea dye the doll, making sure you use a heavy coating of tea. You may want to dye it a second time if the first one is not dark enough. You can use instant coffee to get a really dark look.

3 – After the doll is dry paint it with your choice of color. Make sure you water down your paint. Use 2 parts paint to one part water.  The thinner paint will sand easier during the next step.  Dry the doll.

4 – When the doll is dry use a med grit sand paper and lightly sand your doll. Make sure you sand all in the same direction, it just looks nicer when you are done. When sanding make sure you do not sand in one spot to long you will sand right through the fabric.

 5 – How much you sand or how little you sand depends on how old and worn you want your doll to look.

Note – Do not take a short cut and not tea dye your item first. If you don’t tea or coffee dye the item first, when you sand the light color of the fabric will show through and not look as aged as you may want.

This can be on any painted fabric surface. If you want to cover a stool or a book with fabric and have it look old and worn, you can tea dye, paint and sand it and it and it will l look as if it has been round for 100 years.

If you want your item to have an even more worn and well-aged look, you can sand in one spot long enough for it to sand through the fabric. Make the sanded spot small and then take a needle and thread and mend it. After all 150 years ago they did not toss things in the trash it he first sign of wear. They fixed and reused everything they could.  
We can take a lesson from our ancestors, fix and reuse!!

If you want to see what a tea dyed, painted and sanded item looks like just take a look at my etsy site. The link is at the bottom of this post.
Well I guess that was not as short as I thought it would be.

Have a great day and thanks for reading!

Faith - The Primitive Black Hat Society