It’s Been on the To-Do List for Ten Years

Last weekend I played with painting old linens.  I followed the directions from a 2014 article called ” ‘Dyeing’ Vintage Linens with Paint”, by Cheryl Sleboda, (Feb/March 2014 Quilting Arts magazine). This process is a way for old stained, damaged linens to be revitalized with layers of thinned-down textile paint.

Often in the bins of things I get from online auctions, there are linens with holes, missing corners, big stains, and so on.  The original owner didn’t know how to repair the items, but they could never stand to get rid of them.  That makes them perfect for this technique. 

The author used Setacolor paints so that is what I ordered. They come in delicious assortments, 10 little pots to the set; I limited myself to the set for light fabrics, and the glittery set.

I pulled a good set of fabrics, everything from dainty cotton handkerchiefs to heavy-duty linen dresser scarves, embellished with cutwork, applique, tatting, crocheted lace, and other finishes. They needed to soak in regular tap water for at least ten minutes, and I used that soaking time to set up two tables with plastic covers for a working space, and a big tomato cage out in the yard, for a drying rack.

Supplies were the paints, mixing cups, extra water, rubber gloves, etc. The author said to put about one tablespoon of paint into a mixing container, and add about 1/3 cup of water; then to use one sponge brush per color, and paint two or three colors onto a linen.

I used the sponge brush for exactly one piece. After that I poured, finger-painted, scrunched linens straight into the mixing cups, and so on.

The author said to dry the pieces flat.  I thought I would be clever and dry them on the tomato cage.  I wish she had had room in the article to say something like, “So if you think you are clever, please remember that this paint is essentially a thin plastic.  If you hang your pieces to dry willy-nilly, the paint will stiffen the linens into that shape, and later you will have a lot of trouble getting them flat.”

Painted textiles drying in the yard.

The second day I did another batch, this time with the cool colors. Learning from my previous day’s mistakes, I did lay some of them out flat to dry, and the ones I hung on the tomato cage, I stretched out as much as I could, to avoid those set-in wrinkles.

Cool color textiles laid out on the painting surface.

Cool colors hung to dry.

All of the fibers took the paints well. Some are more faded-looking, some are more intense, but I like the variety. I especially like how some nylon lace panels turned out.

I painted for about two hours each day. I would say each little container of paint only has about 2 tablespoons of paint in it, but using water to extend it worked fine. I used up about 8 of the jars of paint and I now have about 50 pieces, from coaster to pillowcase size.

The pieces need to be heat set by being ironed for 5 minutes, which seems excessive. But I did iron them (between two pressing sheets so as not to get melted paint on the iron) for as long as I could stand to. The paint does affect the hand of each piece, making them feel pretty stiff, but I am just going to use them for art quilts.

Soft colors.
Cool colors.
Warm colors with a little glitter.

I really love them.  They all go together so nicely.  I am planning to use some for our upcoming Endeavourers challenge, which is “Vintage,” and I think I will have plenty to add to other projects too.  I will definitely do this again!

Category : Surface Design
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