DIY- hand-drawn fabric

Following from yesterday's Pinterest post here is the first DIY for creating your own hand-drawn fabric (the pictures don't really do it justice - not sure what happened). Drawing on fabric is fun and it doesn't take long to achieve some great patterns. I used fabric pastels which are quite "soft" which meant I had to keep the design big and not too detailed but I think it worked. The only downside I found to these were the colours went on really bright but once pressed they went darker, I would recommend doing a tester before you start. Anyway don't let that put you off, they are fairly in-expensive and a great way to create your own design. All the steps are below. 

You'll need:

A natural fabric - I used a 100% Linen and 100% cotton calico, you should be able to get these in all good fabric shops. 1 meter will give you loads to play with

Fabric Pastels 

Step 1. I found it best to layer up colours for more depth. Starting with your lightest colour draw oval   shapes randomly over your fabric.

Step 2. Using your mid-colour shade one side and then draw diagonal lines

Step 3. Draw your leaves

Step 4. Press to fix the colour as per the instructions

Step 5. Keep drawing! I did  mix of really simple shape like cherries and ice-creams keep it all very simple.

My fabric pieces were approximately 30cm x 50cm. There was no reason behind it, it was based on what I had available. If you know what you are making e.g a cushion cover then cut pieces according to your pattern. 

 Tomorrow I'm going to show you how to make a very easy zipped pouch bag with your fabric. There is so much you can do with this technique, I don't have children but for those of you on summer holidays it might be a fun thing to try with little ones or alternatively if you use pre-made fabric tote bags (try Amazon or Ebay) you could do as a hen activity, if I was doing as a hen I would use this alphabet design. Happy making!