Faded fabric | dyeing with acrylic paint | airbrushing

TSOM by A.C. in 2021 has come hit the ground running with some amazing kits this year.  Previous two years have been a bit of huh? can't quite catch on...? but the ideas presented this year so far are pretty awesome.  Probably because it's in sync with their current collection, which they sell to the high end for thousands.  Probably because they are doing colours right now that are among my favourite and revisiting that previous collection that uses ochre, peacock, black and cream-white. 

The faded fabric gig is either dirty looking or amazing, in the eye of the beholder.  The combo in the inspiration photo below does it for me.  Will be making this into the Maggie Dress (long).  Very striking.  Very apron-able.  

This idea takes to me, after purchasing fabric then accidentally storing it near a window that caught rain, then subsequently finding mould on it.  Couldn't get the mould dots off no matter what.  So, knew I would do something faded with it, one day.

A.C. writes about their faded fabric instructions on the journal.  I didn't really follow it.  I just diluted cheap black paint and splashed it randomly on this fabric, which was pre soaked (only just enough to be wet).  I have washed this fabric out, only minutes after dyeing, with strong detergents and long soaking.  No more colour is really going to exit from this fabric, with normal wash.   Some colour changes to fabric will pretty much stay on, no matter what commercial colour remover is used.

Which takes me to the acrylic paint observations that

• Acrylic paint can dye!  I have been averse to this because I have seen experimentally that colour does come off (I was trying to achieve greater saturation and evenness).
• This is an excellent technique for weak dyeing.  
• This is an excellent technique for changing colours of shirts that I don't like, or just needs a little extra help (e.g. changing those strange hospital blue shirts into A.C. indigo green-blue.  Or those cold grey shirts into A.C. indigo grey-blue).
• This is an excellent technique for achieving colours of fabric that are very subtle.  A.C. uses many subtle, soft colours extremely well.
• Using a stencil to spray on the black paint, as A.C. does, will probably be what I will do in future rounds.  It distributes the white/black spaces without you needing to do the thinking.
• Update: having now tried this with other colours, I can say that acrylic paint isn't a great dyer.  It does need a high concentration... and I haven't yet experimented this with leaving the fabric to first dry before washing it out, but in this method, acrylic colour does not stick easily at all.  It does, but barely.  Use this principles to your advantage.  You can also deduce that many (not all) things will pretty much wash out as long as you get it wet and soaked as soon as it's dirtied.

DIY faded fabric using acrylic paint

Alabama Chanin fitted long skirt inspiration photo
Paint was blend of black, white, satin silver

Alabama Chanin Maggie dress inspirational photo

Airbrushing

For the first time today, I decided to not do the air brush in a flurry.  Previously, it was hectic and chaotic.  Because I was inexperienced.  Man, getting the hang of the air brush is a pain in the behind. 

• I accepted and went with the anticipation that using an airbrush gun is a work of observation.
• I clipped a bit of the air brush straw (inside the air brush jar) because it leaned to much into the base of the jar, and was making it impossible to have a flow!
• I took many opportunities to dunk the airbrush gun (without the paint jar) into water and clean the straw so that the paint never got too clogged in there.
• I used undiluted cheap paint.  I have found that it needs this level of thickness to have enough molecules to do the bonding later when I get around to heat setting.  Which, for the size of this project, will be inside the kitchen oven.
• I had several cloths around ready to use for all the dirty work, or to dry hands.
• I permanently have my art table covered (taut) with an old cotton bed sheet, which helps to grab the jersey fabric.  This also works to catch any extra spray paint.
• I threw big old sheets on the floor next to my art table, creating more space for mess help.  This is a good space to dump the stencil in between setting up the fabric panels on the table, and to set up a place to hang the newly painted fabric.
• I cleared my art table completely, which means there's more space for a big stencil to lie flat
• I had a huge bucket whose shape is hard to tip over, underneath my art table, which makes it easy to dunk my airbrush gun (minus paint jar) and keep it wet, washed, non-clogged.
• I cut roughly, for the shape of the fabric panel (giving it a good inch or many inches outside of the actual panel).  This way I can pin the fabric to the table.  The stencil needs to be lifted again and again, so why pull the fabric up also, and keep readjusting the half-wet fabric?  I found that lifting the stencil off the fabric panel is best done slowly & gently.  Then there's even less lifting of the fabric panel.