Making skeleton fabrics

I had used a plastic (flat) skeleton to make skeleton shapes on fabric for some art quilts last year, and thought I would do it again to make some pillows. I pre-cut my fabric a bit larger than what I will need to make the pillow (18" to 20" for a 16" pillow).

I had some Tumble Dye dyes that come in a spray bottle. I set my plastic skeleton down (he has hinged joints so you can see his pose changes on the fabrics) and spray the whole cloth, which are shown on the left side. Then I set another piece of fabric next to the first, pick up the skeleton and flipped him over, dye side onto the fabric. This was a little tricky as he was a bit drippy and his arms were flopping around.

I think they are great. The last time I did this I used Setacolor paints in spray bottles and I think the outline images were a little sharper, but very similar results.

The Tumble Dyes have to air dry then go in the dryer for 20 minutes. I will probably wash them after that just to make sure the dyes are set. I used 100% cotton for most of these, but there are some of unknown fiber content and I need to make sure the dye doesn't wash out of those. The packaging for the dyes did not specify a fabric type to use, so I hope they all turn out fine. I did make solid fabrics (just spraying ink to color the whole piece of fabric), for the back side of the solid colored ones.  One Tumble Dye spray bottle did one outline fabric, one transfer print fabric, and one piece of solid-ish backside fabric, but sometimes it was a stretch.

I'll show you the final pillows, hopefully next week!