Try it Tuesday – Painting Aida Cloth!

try it tuesday
So I’ve decided to take part in a feature called Try it Tuesday. I first saw it on Knit Me a Cake, but she got the idea from Trends with Benefits. I love the idea of this feature because it gives me motivation to actually do some of the countless things I’ve pinned on Pinterest!
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For the first Try it Tuesday I used the Wee Little Stitches tutorial for painting any color Aida fabric and made a rainbow of cloth!
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I picked up a bottle of Martha Stewart Crafts tintable fabric medium from Michael’s. I couldn’t decide what color to do, so I cut my Aida cloth into 6 pieces and went for a whole rainbow. The bottle said to use a 2-1 ratio. I couldn’t be bothered to measure it, but I probably should have. Because the medium is so much thinner than the paint, it was hard to gauge if I was using the correct ratio.

I also had a hard time getting the paint to be even. Part of it might have been helped by using a thicker foam brush, and part of it might have been that the paint was too thin because I didn’t measure the medium.

The directions on the bottle I bought varied a little from the Wee Little Stitches tutorial. The bottle instructed to let the cloth dry for 24 hours before heat setting it. The fabric is a little stiff, but it doesn’t feel too bad considering it’s been painted.
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While I love the bright colors, I would probably use this technique more often to get various shades of gray for my cloth. Ever since I started doing a lot with black fabric, the white just feels too stark to me, I prefer to work on a colored surface. I found some silver Aida at Hobby Lobby, but I think I would like a slightly darker gray. I really love the possibilities that this opens up! I can’t wait to stitch on these and see how it goes.

Comments

  1. says

    I love working with colored Aida! I’ve been doing this awhile and it makes your pieces that much more customized. One thing that’s different and takes some getting used to is how stiff the Aida becomes. The holes are mostly painted over, so it’s hard to find your bearing on where to punch the needle through sometimes. It’s harder to push the needle through, so you may get sore fingers. That’s not going to stop me, though! Thank you for the great read!

    • says

      Good to know! I had a feeling that the holes will be a little harder to stitch but I’m up for a challenge! I haven’t started on these yet because I haven’t picked the right project yet, but I’m excited to start. I think it’s going to be so fun to have such bright backgrounds!

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