Sewing Vloggers

Monday, August 5, 2019

A new top, Butterick 6486 and painted!





I am going to call this The DynaFlow Top. It has really been fun to play with. I got this pattern some time ago and a pretty floral to make it up with. Will it fit? On Pattern Review there were numerous comments about how large the pattern ran. I was specifically looking for a pattern for a future project that would have a rather loose hanging bodice with an attached skirt and this looked like one I could use to reach that goal, something along these lines.  I do promise you, my plaids will match a bit better than these if I use them!





 For now, it's hunt something for use as a muslin from the stash.



I started to search  and since I had a pretty good go with my Dandelion Dress muslin I looked at better fabrics but not fabrics that were too too good. I was just playing here. This was a loose fitting top so if the fit was a bit off on the wearable muslin I could live with it.  I decided on a vintage cotton damask tablecloth in sky/baby blue. It  was beautiful square cloth and so very soft but, ugh, that baby blue! The contrast on this photo has been exaggerated so you can better see the fabric. The design is not yellowy at all in reality and is really pretty. Having been washed countless times, it has that worn softness  and should be comfy to wear. The sample you see above also is from the scraps. When something goes into the stash and has a defect, I mark it with a small safety pin so I won't not notice it when it is time to cut.


This project has been in the "to do" pile for quite some time and in the meantime, on a Pinterest binge, I clicked and discovered a paint called DynaFlow (no affiliation). Then I got sucked into Youtube vids on said paint and I was sold. I cautiously laid down my plastic on the Zon for one bottle but in my favorite color, periwinkle. I thought I would try just this one bottle before buying one of the sets of colors. It was in the six dollar range. I did find that Amazon has limited color choices and there is a lot more available at Dharma Trading.  Let's see what happens!

Finally, today I got a chance to play with my paint and my soft, blue tablecloth. I cut out the top but only with my usual petite adjustments. There were no darts which worries me but we will see how it looks. In reviews the top pulled up on the uber busty but on those just a little extra busty it seemed ok.



I  cleared my work table and was thankful it was so long. Then I laid down what the bag said was a drop cloth but when you pick it up for a dollar at the dollar store you can't expect much. It was a big sheet of very thin plastic but it worked. I covered everything around my work area in case of over splash. the sheet was secured and then I spread out my pattern pieces flat on top. I did some piecing on the peplum strip to accommodate the design in the tablecloth and max out the yardage. This top pulls over the head. I did my best to match the design of the damask as I cut out.



Next I sprayed the areas of the garment pieces where I wanted to paint with water. This paint is the consistency of water itself but quite intense in color. It flows like watercolor paints but is more saturated. You can play with it like water color paints. It is heat set in the end and all I read and see says it is very permanent. Those areas I sprayed? Not enough water and too futzy. I switched to a bowl of water and a clean two inch paint brush. I just brushed water generously where I wanted to put paint. This technique made the fabric stick to the plastic sheet in a nice flat surface to work on, no wrinkles.

Once everything was wet. I poured straight DynaFlow into a junk bowl and dipped in that same brush. I painted along the top edge of the peplum and I wanted more intensity there. Then I cleaned my brush and just pulled down the paint with a clean wet brush which made it lighter, just like a water color would behave. By the time I did the full strip of the peplum I went back and did another coat near the top edge to intensify it further. I painted all my pattern pieces in this method as I had envisioned. I shut the light out, went upstairs, grabbed a beer and made dinner.


A couple hours later I went back to my studio to check things out and loved what I had found. The color had migrated a bit in a nice soft way and it had separated into different tones in a few places, very pretty. I liked it even more now.  This morning, after drying all night, it looked great, what you see above. When it is all dry for 24 hours I have the option of ironing it or throwing it in the dryer to set the color.



Here we are after 24 hours. Years of painting fabrics have taught me that the color can migrate to your ironing boards and show up when you least want it to on a white shirt. I covered my steam press with a heavy towel, laid down the pieces to be heat set, put a press cloth on top, and turned the press to "cotton". I used no steam.  We are now ready to mark and get sewing. This looks like a pretty quick top. I will pay close attention to the upper chest armscye area per the reviews on PR but the largeness I think may be what I want for a future project and this experiment will let me know that. The DynaFlow muslin top begins!      Bunny

4 comments:

  1. This is just so exciting watching you work this project! Following creative people who own a jar of paint just makes me perk up! Yea, Bunny!

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    Replies
    1. Ha, ha, ha. You make my feeble attempts somehow seem delightfully funny. One jar of paint and an old tablecloth from a church rummage sale is all it took. We'll see what the future brings forth! Whatever it comes out like, I've had great fun and isn't that all that matters?

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  2. All I can say is thank you!!!
    You have made my day...!

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