I’ve detailed my process for stencil painting on fabric a couple of times, but recently I decided to branch out a bit and instead of just doing one graphic, try out a pattern.
This isn’t any more complicated than repeating the basic process several times all over the shirt, but just as I was sitting down to work on this one, I had a sudden memory of a post by Sum of Their Stories about hand embroidering a sweater (she calls them “jumpers”) and working up a placement that avoided any “unfortunately placed daisies.”
Since I was also working with daisies, I very much wanted to avoid “unfortunate placement” so I first put my T-shirt on, and then using a mirror and some painters blue tape, marked off the two spots where daisies would be funny, but not work safe.
And then I set about hand painting them. I cut a whole bunch of daisy stencils out of contact paper using my Silhouette Cameo, and then placed them about on the shirt. I did a two color job here – a little yellow in the center and white on the outlines. In some places I got a little overzealous in my yellow painting, but I am never going for perfection.
I left the front stencils to dry for about an hour and then peeled them off and let the entire shirt dry overnight. In the morning I added one more stencil to the back to give it a little more charm, and once that was all dry I turned it inside out and ironed it to set the paint.
I left it out for a few more days because it wasn’t laundry day, but eventually it got washed and folded and now it’s a cute little top for my casual work wardrobe.
