Wish me luck, guys.... please. I've been messing around with paint and stuff on fabric and got curious about this stuff called Lutradur (google it and you'll get a bazillion hits) and bought some and started playing with it. It's sort of like the stuff you put down to keep weeds out of your back yard. The gray, slick stuff, not the black fabricky stuff.
So I traced a butterfly and painted it and darned if it didn't look pretty real, like one you've put in a book or something to make it flat and save it. I took it to our LQS where they thought I was nuts for asking them to get the Lutradur in and they went a bit overboard liking it. So I'm teaching a "Ladies Night Out" in a couple weeks, showing people how to make butterflies. It's not an automatic process. Sometimes the paint runs and it looks bad. Sometimes it just doesn't look real. You have to put on layers of paint and wash it off and ...... fiddle with it. But I said yes, because I jump before I look or think and there it is.
The stuff is cool. I'm making a little journal with a Lutradur cover. You have to mess with it a bit to get the feel for what it can do. No, it's not as cool as fabric, but you can melt it into a goopy mess with a heat gun so it's great for the yuck factor.
I'm not sure this is going to work. I'm not scared to speak to a group. I've done that lots and lots. Many groups, many people, some of them "important" types. Yeah. The part I'm worried about is getting this process down pat enough that it will work when I teach these ladies how to. I'm thinking right now that I'm going to encourage them to do a "Fantasy" butterfly with pretty colors and glitter and the like. Much less stressful than trying to match the orange of a Monarch.
I can use all the good vibes and good wishes you got. I would ask for prayers, but there are so many serious and scary things in my life right now that need prayers that I would feel like a superficial jerk asking anybody to pray over my Lutradur and paint experiments. LOL But good thoughts and advice .... these I will request in boatloads.
Oh, for the record, when you get ready to paint this stuff, put a clean piece of muslin under it. The paint goes through and you end up with the prettiest piece of "hand dyed" fabric you've ever seen.
Sunny