Fabric Tinting Tutorial

Finally! I have found some made some time to sit and write this post. I know some of you have been waiting on pins and needles or not fro this post. I will now reveal the secret to tinting my peacock quilt.

*dramatic pause*

Yeah I know, I just gotta milk it for what it's worth! And the super secret weapon is...

Colored Pencils!!!

Yup you read that right! Colored Pencils. That's it. oh yeah and one more tiny little detail : acrylic textile medium (don't forget this or it won't work.)


So how does one achieve this awesomely easy look?
You will need:
Colored Pencils (more on that soon)
Textile Medium (found with the acrylic craft paints)
Brushes in different sizes (love these, $3 at Walmart)
Cup o noodles er water
Paper towel
Scrap piece of fabric or muslin
Your iron

There are 2 ways to go about this. Tinting before quilting or tinting after quilting. It's up to you so experiment with it. The Peacock quilt was tinted once all the quilting was done. The Birdie block was tinted before any quilting (see below.)

For this tutorial I will be outlining the steps with the Birdie Block (which will someday be turned into something - but you wanted a tutorial right? Beggars can't be choosers!)

sorry for the poor lighting, again you want the tutorial or not?

You can get your very own bird pattern over on Cinderberry Stitches (this is one of the birds found on the Tail Feathers block of the month quilt pattern-block 5) Her stuff is gorgeous and if I wasn't so awful ... umm lazy ... umm awfully lazy at hand stitching I would be making The Tail Feathers quilt.

So anywhoo do as follows:

1) tape down your pattern so it doesn't move as you are coloring
2) tape down your fabric on top of your pattern (use some painters tape)
3) start outlining and coloring in your pattern as desired.
4) you may choose to color it all in or work in sections (up to you)
5) when you are done with the coloring/section take a brush and dip it in some textile medium and go over each area (wash and dry off brush between colors)
6) Take your piece over to your ironing board and lay your scrap piece of fabric over your item. press to set the colors. Some colored pencils have more pigment and will stain your scrap piece of fabric. It's better to get that excess color stuck to a scrap of fabric rather than your iron. I didn't exactly check, but I would imagine that the color that got transferred to your scrap muslin might get transferred to other fabric so be sure you are pressing on a clean area every time!! You don't want to end up with color transfers where you don't want them!
7) Follow the instructions on the bottle of textile medium for the amount of curing time before washing your fabric. Some suggest 24hrs, others suggest a whole week!

That's it!

You can see my work in progress and see my pattern taped underneath the fabric.

A word about colored pencils:
I tried this out with cheapo pencils and premo pencils. They both worked but gave very different results.

The Birdie block was dome using $0.97 Rose Art Pencils. Regular colored pencils have a hard lead and are referred to as hard lead pencils. They didn't blend as well and a lot of crosshatching is required to build up depth.

The Peacock Quilt was done with premo Prisma Color Premier pencils. I forget the actual price since I got mine in College 7 years ago sheesh has it been that long? The come in boxes of 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, and 120! They are much softer and are referred to as soft lead pencils. The Prisma Colors trump the Rose Art on pigment quality and content. They are also way more expensive ($12-$80+), but use a Michaels or Hobby Lobby 40% off coupon on a set of these and you are ready to go.

The Prisma Color pencils went on like buttah. I was able to blend colors together before and after I added the textile medium. Once the textile medium was added the pigments acted almost like paint, mixing and blending wonderfully. You can't even see the pencil marks on the peacock quilt. You can't even compare the richness of the colors! The Prisma Colors are so rich and deep just gorgeous! Hands down I prefer the Prisma Colors, but I can see myself also using the cheapo pencils as well.

Just so you know there are other brands of artist grade soft lead colored pencils.