WIP: Kid Painted Quilt - Blotter Art

We are in the midst of our summer holidays and I'm trying to find activities which involve my kids and that I find interesting - namely creating things! I had this idea to create a series of fabric paintings with my eldest which I would then sew together to make her a quilt that she had co-created.

I have recently invested in a couple of gallons of BioColor and the BioColor Fabric Medium. BioColor does some really cool stuff. But most of all I like it because it is non toxic and the colors are extremely vibrant. It does not however wash out of clothes - in fact it stains badly - so I was quite confident - mixed with the additional fabric medium - it would be a great thing to use for this project. 

She chose her colors - pink and purple. Why does that surprise me? I mixed the following 5 hues. I also added some 'Make it Shimmer' to the dark pink and purple colors.

We are all prepared. Squares (12"x12") of white muslin (I really like the weight and quality of this muslin) on top of waxed paper. The paint is in what Discount School Supply call 'Nancy Bottles'. My girls LOVE squeezing the paint out of them - but gosh can they make a mess with them!

We start to squeeze - our first square is very neat. 

We fold the fabric over and squish. 

Open it up - our first square completed! 

Then we start getting crazy and spreading paint everywhere .... 

... which leads to this.

Squiggles?

Splatty dots? 

There was WAY too much paint being thrown around and the fabric couldn't absorb nearly anywhere enough of the paint. So we changed our strategy. I made an outline to try and contain the spread of paint and once we had folded and splatted we put another square on top of the 'painting' and made a copy.

This worked really really well and gave us two matching copies of each square she made. I also felt having multiples of each 'painting' would be good for making a quilt design.

 

After reading the instructions (after the painting was over!) I read that the paint had to be left to dry for 5 days - which for an impatient four year old was a daunting wait. I will launder, dry and iron all the squares before putting the quilt together. Bunny #1 is already very proud of her 'blanket. She has also demanded a matching 'fancy pillow' with ruffles .......

Update: You can see how this quilt turned out here http://rachaelrabbit.blogspot.com/2013/07/kid-painted-quilt.html 

Our other kid painted fabric projects this summer have included:

Kid painted Teepee

Kid painted Garden Picnic Blanket

Kid painted Quilt #2 - Throwing Paint

Kid painted Quilt #3 - Spraying Paint

Kid painted Quilt #4 - Shaving Foam Paint