The Printed Fabric Bee Science Giveaway

My contribution this month: Petri dishes!

I'm a few days late in completing the fabric for the Printed Fabric Bee this month. The Queen this month was Jackie Lams and her theme was science.

I had to ponder the theme for a while. I finally settled on the idea of petri dishes.

Here's how I made the fabric:

I started out by using the interior diameter of a masking tape roll as a template for the petri dishes. I first drew the circles with a disappearing marker and then went back over the circles with a Pigma pen.

 I painted the interiors of the circles with diluted fuchsia Pebeo Setacolor Transparent fabric paint.

I then painted the areas surrounding the circles with a combination of violet and ultramarine Pebeo Setacolor Transparen fabric paints.

While the paint was still wet, I sprinkled kosher salt and ice melt into the fuchsia circles.

After the fabric dried, I brushed off the salt (which textured the paint) and heat set the fabric paint. I then washed and dried the fabric, before printing the cardboard block designs.

The print blocks were made out of circular pieces of cardboard. I created the designs with a hot glue gun. I wanted them to look like the bacteria and molds that might be grown in a petri dish.

I printed with black Pebeo Setacolor Opaque fabric paint.

After the printed designs dried, I decided that I wanted the background color to be darker so I ended up painting it a couple of more times.

Each month, in addition to making a fabric for the Queen, each member of the bee also makes a 6" version to be part of a fabric giveaway. Here's my contribution.

And here are the rest of the fabrics for the giveaway.

You may have noticed that we have some new members! Now you can win eleven fabric squares!

To enter the giveaway leave a comment at The Printed Fabric Bee blog. The winner will be chosen on November 17. Good luck!

Here are the blogs of other Bee members. Check them out and learn how each member made her fabric:
Deborah Boschert
Lisa Chin
Gerrie Congdon 
Jane Davila
Carol R. Eaton
Judy Gula
Lynda Heines
Leslie Tucker Jenison
Lynn Krawczyk
Jackie Lams
Susan Purney Mark