Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Bleached Shirt Project

This is the stencil I was working with .
Since I am a pisces and I like this design I  drew it on regular paper as to keep for other shirts I might do in the future that way I just trace it on the freezer paper .

The cutting takes quite a long time , the more detailed the stencil is the longer it takes . use a good knife it will save you time and prevent injuries ( this is not a good knife and no, I am not showing you the cuts on my fingers )

I couldn't take the pictures for what happens after cutting it  but it goes like this.

Finish cutting, place freezer paper (shiny side down) on the spot you want , make sure to iron all the wrinkles out first . 

Pick a good spot put a paper towel on top of the design then pass a hot iron over  . start on a low setting at first, it doesn't need to be too hot it just has to melt the wax (shiny side) onto the shirt , so go over a couple of times  until the design is completely flat against the shirt after all, this bond is what will prevent the bleach from making a mess. 

Use a 50/50 water bleach ratio . Use a spray bottle with a nice even mist . do an even spray over and dab with a paper towel , the more bleach you use the lighter the design but also the more the bleach could end up eating at the shirt fibers making holes on it . so I recommend no more than 4 passes dab after each pass.

BE SWIFT

Quickly remove the paper off the shirt, if you didn't use too much heat this should peel right off then quickly very quickly dunk and rinse your shirt in cold water this will prevent the soaking bleach from bleeding and making fuzzy lines .  rinse well. 

With practice you should be able to have nice sharp lines 

wash, rinse, dry, wear with pride 

will add more pictures next week when I make another shirt .