However... she did not go into great detail, and so now that I've learned what to do and what not to do, I will tell you.
My sister Megan was here for Thanksgiving, and she is nearly as geeky as I am (probably even more), so I thought we should give it a go with some Doctor Who shirts.
The lady in the aforementioned tutorial used Soft Scrub with bleach, which I thought would be a safe route to try since it is thick and would generally stay put. We used our usual method of tracing words that we'd printed off the computer onto freezer paper and then used an X-Acto knife to cut them out. (If you have a Cricut or Silhouette, that would speed things up.) Then we ironed the paper, shiny side down, onto the t-shirt.
I put a piece of cardboard inside the shirt and dabbed on the Soft Scrub with a foam brush. Then we waited like 10 minutes, and.....nothing whatsoever had happened.
So we decided to break out the big guns and use straight bleach. I dabbed it on with a foam brush, and lo! It started bleaching right away. But you'll notice that the bleach also started to seep underneath the stencil. Aaack!!!
Once all the letters were done, I stuck the whole thing in a sink full of water and rinsed out all the bleach. It had bled around the letters and looked pretty pathetic. Then we had the brilliant idea to outline the words with a fabric marker.
Now it almost looks like we did it that way on purpose!! Kinda neon-retro.
So for the next shirt, I decided to still use a foam brush, but use much less bleach. Still a mistake.
I forgot to take an actual picture of it, so I cropped this from another shot, but you can see that the "B" was still completely blown out. SIGH!
For the rest of the letters, I'd used a nylon art brush and verrryyy carefully painted inside the stencil, which turned out to be the best method by far. To salvage the "B", I mixed up a custom paint color, added some textile medium and painted around it.
Not so bad now!
I finally got it right on the last shirt. I used a fine nylon brush, dipped in a very small amount of straight bleach, being super careful not to drip or get any on the stencil. You have to paint inside the lines, not touching the paper. Otherwise, it will bleed.
As usual, I dunked the shirt in a tub of water, stencil still on, and rinsed it out carefully. Then I peeled the stencil off and threw all three shirts in the wash. (By themselves, with no other clothes)
I'm excited to have a new method for stenciling! Unlike paint, these designs won't fade or crack or stiffen up your shirt. You just have to know what you're doing, haha.
Here is another link for using a pencil eraser and toothpicks to make a cute, free-handed bleach design on a cloth napkin.
Another, even scarier method is to put bleach in a spray bottle and do a reverse stencil, which is also demonstrated in this tutorial. I'll let you know if I ever get the guts up to try that. Bottom line is, it would be best to have an old kitchen towel or scrap of fabric to test these techniques first, so you don't risk ruining a brand new shirt.
By the way:
Doctor Who, season 4, episode "Midnight". That's what allons-y means. The 10th Doctor used to say it all the time. Sigh! ♥ I miss him.
I do too, Meg. I do too.
