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Making a Border


I need to make borders for the honors cards I had started a while back. The base of the cards is made out of Chinese silk brocade. I wanted to used something sturdy because these cards will be handled quite a bit. I decided to use some white cotton velveteen that was in my stash.

I want the colors to be intense to go with both the ark curtain, made by Bracha Lavee, and the table cover that I made. Many years ago, I read that if you paint color on the back of velvet then the color seeps into the fabric better. This was actually an excellent piece of advice. If you just paint the dye from the front only the top of the nap gets color.

Painting on velveteen you really need to lay the layers of color on heavily. The nap just drinks up that color. Unless you put down lots of color you will end up with a soft and cloudy look, that isn't what I want in this piece.

The photos above show the velvet while it is still wet. I wet the velvet before I began painting with the dyes just to be sure that the dyes really sink into the fabric. Yes,the colors look a bit garish at this point. I expect them to tone down quite a bit as they dry.

Dying fabric is easy, except that you can't entirely control the end result. After the velveteen dries, I will see what I have, and then figure out what I need to do next.


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