Two Weeks???

The fabric with the Presist on it was driving me to distraction! How in the world could I wait two weeks for the paint to cure? Well, I couldn't. The instructions for the Presist say that it can withstand heat and steam so I decided to heat set the Setacolor this afternoon. It was pretty obvious to me that the still-tacky Presist might withstand being ironed, but my iron certainly couldn't withstand the Presist. I laid a paper towel over the fabric and here's what happened:

Little bits of paper towel everywhere, but my iron stayed clean. Next I popped the fabric into some lukewarm water and the Presist pretty much dissolved right away. There were a couple of places I had to rub a bit, but not much. I also noticed there was the slightest bit of blue tinge to the water, so perhaps it would have been wise to wait the full two weeks. Nahhh.

So, here's the fabric to this point, I'll be working with it more. Oh, I tried some discharge paste in one corner and it had no effect, so I'll be adding-on, not taking-away.

More Fiddling Around with Fabric

Found some great black cotton sateen at Baron's Fabrics in Camarillo, California. And doesn't great black fabric just beg to have some discharge paste applied? The top photo was stamped with a little plastic lid (in a couple of places I stamped too enthusiastically and you can actually read the word "Dixie"), then I loaded a syringe with the discharge paste and scribbled and made dots. The second piece is a little journal of the day of surface design, again using the syringe loaded with the discharge paste. I found that as I wrote, little bits of fabric fuzz stuck to the tip of the applicator and made the writing blotchier as I went along. In this case, it didn't really matter because I will cut this fabric up when I use it, but it was a useful lesson.