I saw an blog on BurdaStyle that was all about Eco-Dying Fabric. They showed one about flower smashing to "stain" the fabric and I loved it! This is my process of going through the Flower Smashing Technique.
- Flowers/leaves of your choice (make sure they are fresh and still moist)
- Fabric (100% cotton preferably a lighter color, white will work best)
- Duct Tape
- Shears
- Hammer/Mallet
- Prepping Fabric: If you want to get vibrant colors from the flowers you're going to want to set/fix the fabric. I did this by mixing 4 parts water to 1 part vinegar. Bring to a boil in a large pot and put fabric in pot, let simmer for 1 hour. It will smell so open some windows or you can try this website for other ways to Fix Fabric. Let hang dry.
- Once your fabric has dried set on a flat surface (you want this to be a space you don't care about, or have it covered with plastic) and begin to spread out your flowers in the design you would like.
- Now begin putting duct tape strips over the flowers to hold them in place.
- Now with flowers facing down put plastic over fabric, you can cut up a trash bag, I didn't do this the first time and when I began to hammer the color of the flowers got onto the hammer and I begin spreading that and made it look spotty, so this will make it cleaner, but if you want a more abstract look you can choose not to cover the fabric with plastic. Begin smashing your flowers with a hammer or mallet. You will instantly be able to see the colors seeping through the fabric.
- Take tape off and remains of flowers. Let dry for about an hour.
- Now to set the colors in the fabric with an iron press for about 5 seconds, the areas that were smashed. Now your fabric is ready to use for your sewing projects.
