Cloth pads can be made in so many different ways. We decided to include gorgeous fabrics in the process of creating reusable cloth pads.
One of the really fun things about working with bamboo fabrics is that they accept dye very nicely. We hand dye all of our bamboo velour fabrics ourselves using a low water immersion technique .
Over the last few years we sometimes participated in fundraisers and other special events.
To make those donations stand out more we created special cloth pads for them.
Here are a few examples of one-of-a-kind pads from those ocassions:
For the pads on the right I painted dragon flies on the fabric with hot wax (batik) and redyed them. The dragon fly cloth pads were auctioned off with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross for relief work.
The batik cloth pads on the left were created to benefit the Oceanic Preservation Society (featuring dolphins, sea stars and seahorses) Of course there’s not enough time to hand paint the fabrics with hot wax for each pad we sell.
Here’s the process for our usual pads:
The bamboo fabric is arranged tightly into plastic tubs.
All of the folds will later create the color variations
Different colors are then poured over the fabrics.
Our newest projects include hand stamping the dyed fabrics with carved wood block stamps (above). Since we use fiber reactive dye we are able to use pure soda ash as the fixative – no toxic mordants or other heavy metals
In the mood for a one of a kind cloth pad?
Special edition pads are currently available only as part of the Collector’s Pad Cloth Pad subscription at MeLuna USA
