Weekend Project: Bend the Rules Spring Break Style

This may qualify as old news, but I love Amy Karol's Bend the Rules with Fabric.  I have reached for it more than once this week, looking for projects that might keep my nearly six year-old busy while he pined away for school.  Spring Break can be heartbreaking for a Kindergartener.  It delivered for Mr. Antsy Pants and got me thinking about the projects I want to start after he's tucked in at night.  I have my at home screen printing stuff on order.

These are no sew projects, BUT you could quite easily change that on the t-shirt by following her instructions for drawing with thread, or by putting your embroidery thread and running stitch to good use.  I wanted to avoid tear away stabilizer for such a, uh, interpretive piece (Batman, cousins fight Batman, cousins fighting with Batman?! and some sleeve decoration). These are also *starter* projects; as in, they are works in progress perfect for messing around with in stages.  I think I'm going to use the linen for making up some napkins and Sam already has another shirt going (this time with a bleach pen).  

I asked him to draw a design on a hand-me-down t-shirt using a water soluble pen-- he's at that place in life where he will abandon work if he feels like he messed it up (I'm probably still at that place), so I wanted to give him an out if he needed to start over.  After he was done drawing, I went over his design with a sharpie.  We made sure to let it dry and then I let him have at it with the fabric paints.  I used Jaquard Dye-na-Flo and Jaquard Textile Color (it's thicker and we carry it at Bolt) in combination for the linen and just the Dye-na-Flo for Sam's shirt.

Amy also details how to use resists when painting directly on fabric and how to get different effects using stamps and squeeze tubes (the linen and flowers).  I love using the resist and I definitely want more practice with the paint.  That's one of the reasons that I appreciate this book-- the techniques work and the projects are sweet, but more than that I just get to let go and see what happens. 

We carry a stack of both Bend the Rules Sewing and Bend the Rules with Fabric.