After two and a half years of using a free WordPress theme, I’ve finally got myself a brand new custom design for the blog! My first theme wasn’t necessarily bad considering it was free, but my wife and I actually own and run a web and graphic design business. I was long overdue for a, um… “tailored” design. We’ve been so busy the last couple of years (a good thing of course) that we rarely have time to work on personal projects.
While I was off adjusting my shirt pattern this past weekend, my wife surprised me by designing a new theme for Taylor Tailor. Isn’t she awesome? The logo is based off of the vintage Taylor Tailor sign I picked up off of eBay a while back. I now have a wider area for my images, and overall a nice clean, simple look. I couldn’t be happier with it.
In addition to learning how to make my own clothes, I’ve also started learning how to make my own beer! With the new design I’ll be adding a section about my brewing adventures, so don’t be surprised if you see a beer post here and there thrown in amongst the denim, shirts, and other sewing projects.
Now that my content area is wider, I have to re-edit the images I had planned for the backpack I made with the canvas I posted about a few weeks ago. As soon as I re-size the images I’ll get the backpack posted.
posted August 27, 2012 by Taylor
I bought a couple of yards of canvas on sale knowing that I wanted to make a canvas backpack at some point. When it actually came time to make the backpack (post coming soon), I realized that the natural canvas color would quickly get really dirty. I’ll just dye it I thought, it’s easy right?
The process is actually pretty easy. The hard part is getting the right color. This was my first time dying anything, and while it was fun, I’ll probably look a little harder for the exact color of fabric I want next time, rather than trying to dye fabric to a certain color. I used a simple, inexpensive dye that you can find at most hobby/craft stores.
*Please note, this post is not meant as an endorsement for Rit dye. It just happened to be the easiest product to find in my area.*
I started with a grey powder dye. If the first dying session had resulted in the color shown on the box, I would have been pretty happy with the outcome.
Unfortunately, the result was a very cool light grey, borderline lavender color. Not exactly what I had in mind for a backpack. I followed the instructions, used two packages of dye, washed the fabric before I started, etc. Maybe my water wasn’t hot enough? Maybe my sink was too small? I’m not sure what went wrong, but I’ll blame my lack of experience rather than the dye.
So…I switched to liquid dye, picked out a “nice” taupe color and repeated the process.
My lavender canvas turned into the color shown below, which is actually fairly close to the color on the bottle, and not a bad choice for a backpack. If I do decide to embark on a dying adventure again, I think I’ll try to seek out a non-conventional, more organic approach and use something like coffee or tea to give plain cotton some color. This will do for now.
I hope to have the backpack I made with this canvas up soon.
posted August 6, 2012 by Taylor
