Ski ski ski... away...

This cap is for my crazy ski bum of a friend. She saw the caps that I painted previously and requested a ski themed one. I think this will look darn cute on her.  :)

This is my first women's cap too. I quickly realized that I dont have the same kind of flat surface as the men's hats too. It was a bit of a challenge getting the shapes right on hat since the fabric is not as tight. I decided to keep it simple with a basic ski scene - snow, trees, and a happy skier.








First I did the snow, then added some trees to bring a sense of depth to the picture. Don't miss the snow on the trees. They look so pretty with the snow on them.
 

Then came the happy skier. The biggest challenge was to keep the edges clean and lines straight. Since the fabric is not taught it was more difficult than I thought it would be. This was a perfect project for a slow weekend. I hope my friend likes it as much as I do. :)

Fun Fantasy Fun

I recently discovered how much I missed fabric paints! When I was younger, I used to do a lot of fabric painting. I have painted everything from T-shirts to pillow cases to table cloths to bed sheets. I made a lot of pieces for friends and family back then. My mom might still have some old faded ones in a closet somewhere. :)

I had never painted caps before and I must say it has been a lot of fun. Here are a few of the caps I have made recently.

1. The first one I made was this "Sharingan" cap for my hubby. Anyone who reads and follows Manga would know what this is. 

And for those who have no idea what Manga is, here is how google defines it. :)
The Sharingan is a special type of dojutsu (pupil technique) that naturally occurs in all members of the Uchiha clan. It grants sort of super powers to those who can use it.

2. The second one is a Colorado themed cap. This cap combines the majestic Colorado mountains with the Colorado Flag. This is by far my favorite one. 

3. Last one, is another one from a comic called "Bleach". The character here is the hollow within Ichigo Kurosaki. Another one for the hubby. :)

Even though I don't follow Bleach, I think the cap looks pretty cool.

 I am really into the fabric paints right now. More to come soon. :)

Sharingan

My husband has had this plain white cap for a while now and one day while we were out with friends, I had the idea to paint his cap. I then proceeded to google and found that hand painted caps are a thing! Who knew! I asked him what he would like on a cap and he picked a Sharingan.

I have worked with fabric paints before but that was almost 10 years ago! So, I went to the store and bought a few basic colors. They are pretty easy to use. The colorless extender helps in blending and I usually use a little bit of water if I feel the paint is too thick to do the outlines.

As usual, I started out with a pencil sketch. A geometric compass is very handy when you need those perfect circles. :)

I started with the center of the eye and worked outwards. The color is pretty opaque on white surface. One coat was enough.

I didn't want to leave the white as is around the eye. So I decided to give it a gray/black/white background. Even though the background was fun, it took way longer than I expected. But I think the background makes it look complete.

Usually on fabric, once the painting is dry you iron the back side of the painting to heat set it. That way its washable and the paint wont come off. On a cap, the iron was out of question, so I used a hair drier and heated the inside of the cap. Hopefully that's enough!

At the end of it, I have an ecstatic husband who wants me to paint another cap for him. :)