Sunday 4 October 2015

New ideas ... drawing on fabric

 It's something that I've been pondering over for a quite a while and have read about it on a few website pages.  During the summer holidays Tesco had a pack of 28 coloured Sharpies in their "back to school" range for an amazing £7 so I snapped up a pack for Katie to take to uni and regretted not buying myself some too.  A few weeks later I gave in and ordered myself some Tesco at the same price (as our local store didn't have any) and was like a kid at Christmas when they arrived.  Most of the website pages I'd been looking at suggested using Sharpies as they're great on fabric, so I was itching to get going.

I grabbed a few offcuts of various fabric types to have a play and was disappointed to find the vast majority "bled" when I used the pens directly on them.  Using a black laundry pen as an outline, then colouring in, helped a little, but it wasn't as neat as I'd hoped.  My drawings needed to be very small indeed in order to fit onto brooches, keyrings and bag charms ... this didn't help the situation!  After a bit of a think and a couple of mugs of tea I decided to try using some offcuts of interfacing.  As is typical of many crafters, I can't bear to throw anything away, so all my interfacing offcuts are kept in the crafting draw (for that special day when they'll come in handy ... like today!).  Hey presto, it worked a treat.  The medium interfacing is sturdier than cotton and linen and the weave very close together so there's very minimal bleeding.  I'm able to draw the picture in pencil first, outline in the laundry pen and then carefully colour in.  Ironing the finished drawing, with  protection from a tea towel, seems to set the colours and they didn't seem to run when washed under the tap.  All good to go.

So, here's my first few little drawings ... nothing too exciting but they make a change to using charms in all my work and are a little bit more personal too.











The robins took a while to perfect, they were so fiddly to get right at such a small size ... pleased with the outcome though and the little snowman was too cute not to use!








Just love this regatta style bunting.  Using mixed media in my work is something I already do so adding the new texture of hand drawn fabric is adding an extra element to my designs.  Both of these new items can be purchased in my shop.

2 comments:

Julia K Walton - Fire Horse Textiles said...

Great results! I have tried using the Staetler and Pigma permanent pens - and they work on some fabrics and bleed on others. I will have to try on interfacing as the results look excellent! :o)

Elaine, Ellies Treasures said...

Thanks Julia - yes, give it a go, it has a nice rustic feel look - gentle strokes with the pen I found worked well.