More Pounded Fabric

Here are the final two pieces from the Pounded Fabric experiment. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from your failures. This experiment is one of those lessons!

Fabric 3

 This is a fat quarter that somebody else dyed as part of an exchange. Not my style.

Not much better after the Setacolor and Lumier layer.

Front side. Another layer of Neopaque and Lumier. You can still see the stamped designs.

Back side looks a lot better than the front.

Fabric 4

I'm responsible for this piece. It has layers of rubbings with paint sticks. It's pretty bad.

 A layer of Setacolor and Lumier help, but it's still ugly.

Front side after another pounding with Neopaque and Lumier.

 The back side of this piece is probably the most interesting of all.

I like the combination of Neopaque and Lumier paint, however, I don't like this pounding technique. If I were to do this again, I would paint the damp fabric, then scrunch it into a bag to dry. At least I would know beforehand that all the areas that needed paint received it.

I'm not quite ready to give up yet and will do one final coat to all the pieces using my technique. I want majority of the underlying designs to disappear. Before I do the final layer, I need to finish the quilting on a piece that will go on exhibit at the end of May. 

Pounded Fabric Experiment

I read a blog post about Pounded Fabric and decided to give it a try. Of course, I didn't follow all of their directions. Silly me . . . will I ever learn? Probably not.

If I had started with a solid color of fabric like they suggested and didn't use transparent paint for the first layer, I would probably be done already. But no, I had to use some really UGLY fabric that I've been saving for some odd reason. Usually, layering makes the fabric more interesting. At this point, I'm not convinced that I should have wasted my time.

There are a lot of step by step photos so I'll only show 2 pieces of fabric today.

Fabric 1

 Hand dyed fat quarter. Not sure who made this, but it's not my style.

Squished fabric into a bag and added transparent Setacolor and Lumier paint. Still ugly

Squished fabric into a bag and added Neopaque and Lumier paint.

I still see the stamped design on the front side of fabric.

Back side of fabric . . . much better, but not great.

Fabric 2

All the steps are the same as Fabric 1.

I made this ugly fabric a long time ago using Soft Scrub with bleach.

 Setacolor made it worse.

 Front of fabric is still ugly.

Back of fabric is still ugly.

Am I completely wasting my time? Should I throw it away OR add one more layer?