Transfer Paint

I tested out transfer paints on the usual white cotton and synthetics. Then I had what I thought was a genius moment.

I remembered I had white cotton in the depths of one of my yarn boxes and wondered how the transfer paints would work on a knitted piece.

First I painted plain white paper and laid it in a plaid type design. Then knit a square with the White cotton yard.

Using the heat press, I pressed the two together and the colour did exactly what it said in the tin and transferred the colour to the yarn.

It was a perfect result. I loved it. I also loved moving the fabric as the areas where the yarn wasn't in contact with the paper remained white, creating great areas of interest if it was used for a garment.

So, excited by this, I decided to create a larger sample to use as one of my final pieces.

I began knitting a larger piece.

The ball of yarn was coming to an end.

I returned to my boxes of yarns, I was sure I had another couple of balls of the white cotton...

Another lesson learned. I had to make another trip to a couple of yarn stores, no one had the White cotton I had used so I had to discard the larger sample and begin again with a white cotton/synthetic mix.

Lesson number two, mix enough transfer paint for your whole project! I really struggled to colour match the second time. The first time was so easy to achieve the colours I wanted! 

The final result was not anywhere near as good as the sample. The colours were almost fluorescent. There were lighter and darker patches transferred from the painted paper and in the past couple of months, the colours have faded vastly.