Sakacon: DIY Painted Washcloths

You can't go further than two feet into the baby section of the internet without hearing how amazingly must-have the aden & anais swaddle blankets are. I'm not one to argue - breathable, soft, stretchy fabric sounds lovely. I'll probably register for some, but in the meantime, I wondered whether there were any DIY substitutes in the fabric world.

The internet said that Joann's cotton gauze fabric was pretty close, so I bought some with a coupon to try it out. I started small (a ~9 inch square) since I didn't want to waste fabric if the painting wasn't working.

First I tried a rubber stamp method. A quick brush of fabric paint on my stamp, pressed over and over onto the fabric.

(My picture quality is a little whack still - getting used to crafting in my garage now that we moved everything out of the now nursery room..)

Anyway, the stamp isn't too bad. Not very crisp, but it has that homemade flair? Even the stamp is homemade! Haha. It's a green rupee from Zelda.

For painting attempt #2, I tried a paper cut stencil with a paint "pouncer". Basically a foam brush you dab up and down to fill in the stencil. (Make sure you tape down the stencil so it doesn't wiggle around.)

Again, not too bad. This one is the water bending symbol from Avatar. It's quick, but don't expect screenprint quality in term of even paint and crisp designs.

Once the designs are dry, iron them from the backside of the fabric to set the paint (so it doesn't run when washed). It'd be kinda lame if your washcloth was constantly running paint everywhere. :P

I added another plain piece of gauze on top and put right sides together, sewed it up and turned it right side out. Iron it flat and add a top stitch to finish it off.

For the final test, I washed both clothes in the next towel laundry load, to see if they colors would bleed. No bleeding, and now they are nice and soft and ready to go for baby baths. Or something. Haha.