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I am extremely excited to share this tutorial with you! I have been making vintage grain sacks for years,,,but the French ones are my favorite!
Just like the Grain Sack Tea Towels, we are going to start with a painter's canvas found at Wal-Mart, Lowes or Home Depot. I have chosen a 9' x 12' and cut it in half.
Wash canvas in cold in your washing machine, then tumble dry.
Cut a piece of your canvas 23" wide x 76" long. Or, you can fold the canvas over to double it up, and at the centerfold, cut your fabric 23" x 38". When opened, the canvas will be 23" x 76".
Fold the canvas over in the middle, to where the canvas measures 23" x 38". Go in from the edge of the fabric 1/4" and machine stitch up both long sides, leaving the top opened. The bottom will be the fold, so there is no need to sew that.
Go down from the top raw edge of the canvas 1/4" and fold edge down. Press folded edge with steam iron completely around.
Top stitch around, close to the raw edge of the fabric around leaving enough space inside the fold i.e,"tunnel" to run a large safety pin through with a piece of jute twine hooked to it for the drawstring.
Flip fabric Right Side Out.
Inside the the top of the canvas sack, where you just topstitched around the top with your machine, you can make (1) 1/2" small slit for your drawstring.
Press canvas completely with iron removing any wrinkles before painting lines.
Choose your Acrylic paint of choice. I chose to mix two colors to get my desired blue. I used FolkArt Sterling Blue mixed with FolkArt Thunder Blue.
Using your ruler, find the center of the both short sides of the canvas sack and mark the very end of the fabric with a "pencil" dot. From that center point, go over 1/2" and mark it with a pencil. Run your Blue Painter's Tape from short end to short end marking your paint line edge.
Using a stiff bristle craft brush, dry brush in between the paint lines. Make sure your brush is basically "dry" before painting. This is done by dipping the brush in the paint, then wiping the excess paint off so the brush is basically "dry" before painting on the canvas. This makes the paint look more "worn".
Dry brush inside the paint lines with your Blue Craft paint.
Allow to dry.
From the edge of the center blue line go over again 1/4" and mark a dot for the edge of your next line and again 1/4" with another dot to finish the line off. Run your Blue Painter's tape again from short end to short end.
Remove Tape.
These are just a few variations I did.
Enjoy!
