Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Baby Gift: Hand-Painted Handkerchief celebrating the birth of a new person!


Using Jacquard Textile Permanent Fabric Paints and a Pentel brush, I paint on a variety of fabrics from cotton, cotton jersey, linen, vintage hand towels, and hankies. This takes time, and I love doing it. Wedding Gifts, Baby Shower Gifts, monograms, sentiments, graduation gifts, and more - there are many ways to tell a person they're wonderful. This hankie was painted on soft pink fine linen, and hand stitched with a rolled hem using matching thread. These can be machine washed easily, without compromising the hand lettering in any way. 


This soft pink made adding opaque white accents to the soft grey really fun.
Here's a closeup of the finished painted hankie. Next step is to hand stitch a rolled hem. And numbers - there's nothing sexier than beautiful numerals that visually speak to one another. 
The sketch. First done in pencil, I use a light table to illuminated the way of the brush strokes, tracing as I work with a fine brush and permanent fabric paint.
The linen colors I work with - cut, ironed and ready to be painted and stitched.
My light table: Here's the linen on top of the sketch, which I outline in black marker so it's more easily seen through the linen.
The painting has begun and you can see the marker sketch underneath the linen, guiding my way.

The final piece, ready to be shipped and sent away to its forever home. :D
Even folded, the letterforms invite you to touch them.



2 comments:

Catherine Langsdorf said...

Stunning! Thanks for showing the steps.

Anne Elser said...

Thanks Catherine! I think this might make a great workshop!!