Fabric Storage On The Wall! {DIY temporary fabric art}
Some of that fabric you have hidden away in your cupboard or on your little fat quarter shelf is too pretty to be hidden away. Put it on display on your wall! The best part about this storage, um… home decor, is that when you think of the perfect project for that FQ or half-yard, it’s easy to take it down.
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Earlier this month my sister Beka sent me this beautiful bundle of Joel Dewberry fat quarters in the mail! She is so sweet, I don’t know what I would do without her. {By the way, if you absolutely must have the exact same fabric I used for this project, I noticed that it’s on sale right now at Craftsy. Just sayin’.}
I petted and adored the fabric for a day, and then it was time to clean up so I sadly put it away in my fat quarter cupboard.
Then later I was shopping at Michaels and I saw these inexpensive square canvases and the idea hit me – my fabric needs to go on the wall!
To hang your fabric on the wall in this arrangement, you will need:
- 9 canvases, 12” square
- 9 fat quarters of fabric (1/2 yard pieces will work okay too)
- about 36 pins
Start by pressing the wrinkles from your fat quarters, especially the middle part.
Lay a piece of fabric right side down on your work surface, and place a canvas on top. Fold the top and bottom up.
Fold the sides like a present, folding in the corners and then the point.
Place a pin at each corner.
And now you can hang it up!
Since the fabric covered canvases are so light, I used simple hangers and finishing nails.
To hang up 9 canvases in a square formation, find the center of your wall, and make a pencil mark. Using a tape measure and a ruler, make a mark 14” directly above the center and 14” below. Then make marks 14” to the left and right of your center mark. Add 4 more marks in the corners, each 14” from the others.
Place a hanger 1” below each pencil mark. Then erase the pencil marks if they show.
Hang up your canvases! It’s a bit tricky to balance them since the fabric makes them uneven, but be patient.
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Happy Sewing!
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Great way to see our stash and make a sewing space sing with color. I am going to do this but a little different. I will take 4 X 4 canvas and use my larger yardage, cut 5 X 5 squares and hang on my wall. Thank you for the tip.
I think that will look awesome! I would advise you to try wrapping the fabric around the canvas before you cut 5 x 5 squares. You need some extra fabric to wrap around and pin unless you plan to use staples. Share a picture… I’d love to see!
Caroline
I love this idea thanks so much for sharing!
You’re going to want to put a layer of heavy muslin in between the commercial canvas and the fashion fabric if you’d like to reuse. The sizing and adhesives used on commercial canvases can and will leach through and ruin your fashion fabric, the only question being how long it takes depending on room temp and humidity. Having recovered similar items during my time as a Props Artisan in theatre, I was always disappointed when I discovered someone had been careless and not lined in between, thus ruining the fabric for anything other than a cutting pattern.
It’s best if you can find either heavy weight muslin or duck canvas, wash in hot water (NO fabric softener!) and dry hot to make a clean surface. Use staples if you think you’ll be regularly recovering the canvases, and consider two layers if you can only find thin muslin. Check every few months to be sure the liner is not saturated by the sizing/adhesives seeping through and change as needed. Remember to cover the back of the frame as well because that’s not only a contaminant hazard area, but also a major snagging area.
If you have larger cuts you can use deep frame canvases (the ones that are 2"-4" in thickness). Center your design how you want it, iron as above, then folks your excess behind. It can be tricky, but it’s a favorite technique for set dressing at smaller or academic theatres as you don’t have to sacrifice as much stock fabric for one show, and may even get to borrow costume shop fabric this way (not often but it can happen). You can also use very thin Stitch Witchery or a similar iron on hem product to create a hem and then have the excess fabric drape behind or around the canvases. That’s fun to do if you’re doing a line of them around a window you can’t put drapes on or creating a giant frame around a picture frame or shadow box on a focal wall.
With deep frames you can also skip hardware if the fabric isn’t too heavy.
If you get a Masonite (aka Hardboard) "canvas", you can flip the deep frame around (or buy a deep shadowbox), have it only fully covered in your lining fabric, and mount to the wall as hanging shelves for small cuts of fabric you can fill and/or drape on top of the frame! If you add pegs you’ve got more ways to drape your fabric or keep shorter cuts/ends of ribbon organized!
Depending on the total weight you may want to add brackets to the bottom for support, or attach a French Cleat to the back and cut a hole in your fabric around the cleat to ensure full contact to the hardboard/Masonite/backer.
I loved simple projects like this because pinning fabric means saving fabric and it means you can change your look as often as you have the energy/time/money. Thanks for the great basics and don’t forget your liner! 😉
P.S. For some fabrics, black muslin over the base liner can help your fashion fabric really pop! Hold the fashion fabric over the lined canvas in the light it will be displayed under to get an idea of what you want to use as liner. 🙂
Thanks so much for all the tips! xoxo