Make your own Fabric!

Kallie and I have honestly been on a fabric hunt lately. We have searched and searched for cool fabrics for a client. We were looking for a large print (which is hard to find for cheap). We found some sweet patterns, however, the fabrics were $15.00 a yard or MORE even up to 30.00 a yard. So, being the thrifty people that we are, we decided to try to MAKE our own fabric.

It was a huge success in my opinion. 🙂

The items you need are:
1 yard of fabric (I had this on hand from a previous project)
1/2 yard of wonder under (found at a fabric store for about 1.99 a yard)
and a smidgen of non-fraying white fabric (yes it exists)
Some Sharp Scissors
an Olfa cutting board
and an Iron

I first read the instructions of the wonder under. Wonder under is a product that fuses fabric to fabric. So, basically it glues one fabric to another. You iron it on to one fabric, remove the paper, and then iron it on to the second fabric.
It seemed simple enough, so I went for it.

This is what wonder under looks like:

Next, I laid the wonder under on top of the design I wished to duplicate and traced it with a sharpie marker.

Here is a picture of the two fabrics

The white (non-fraying) material was found at JoAnn’s Fabrics. The ladies at the counter pointed us to “black out” fabric. (Which is meant to go on the opposite side of curtains to protect them from the sun). The ladies assured us it would not fray. It cost 5.99 a yard, but I only used about 1/2 of a yard for this project.

Next, I ironed on the wonder under to the white fabric.

After it cooled down, I cut out the fabric shape with sharp scissors. If your scissors aren’t sharp, the edges won’t be smooth.

Then, I gently removed the paper backing off the wonder under and ironed it on to the green fabric (following the instructions by using a damp cloth). With the one pattern, I used both the negative and positive space to create two separate fabric pieces.

Here is a picture in the process, my daughter was my partner in this project. 🙂

Next, I cut out the fabric with my Olfa cutter (since my fabric will be made into pillows, I cut them into squares.

Since I spent about $4.00 total for this sweet “large patterned” fabric I think it’s a darn sweet thrifty idea!