Cellofoil and water

Today's blog is about Fabric manipulation,  in particular heat distressing plastic.
I seem to have lots of this.

It is the plasticky foil wrapper from a rice cake packet.  I decided to see what would happen if I zapped it with my heat gun and was pleasantly surprised.

It becomes molten and soft and forms ridges and pools.  I thought it looked a bit like the crests of waves.
In the picture above, I have free machined the flat areas to a piece of Lutradur.

Here is a close up of one of the ridges and the round, flat puddles.

I cut up some watery looking fabric to put in the "puddles"

Here i have placed one of these between some ridges.

I did a little bit of free motion over these watery bits.

Then placed some more watery bits down.

I ripped up some nappy liners and started adding them next to the silver ridges.

I added a bit of the nappy liner strips.

Then I added a whole lot more.  I melted the nappy liner with the heat gun, and..

..it turned into froth, just what  I wanted.  This sample needs a bit more free machining and perhaps even some more nappy liner, since it disappears almost to nothing except a few bubbles, but I am very pleased with this experiment and will be tweaking it a bit more, I think.
 

A thunderstorm is approaching very quickly, so I will post this now, before the power goes out.
Happy creating.

Hot Stuff Workshop

As I said a few days ago, before I went MIA over the weekend, on Saturday, I went to Neroli Henderson's Hot Stuff Workshop at ATASDA Vic.  It was a great day and we played with lots of bling. Neroli was a great tutor, giving everyone their own creative space, but at the same time explaining things very well.

First we played with tyvek.  we used a wide range of colouring materials to colour it and lots of angelina and other shiny stuff, then shrank it all.

These are my two pieces of tyvek after shrinking.  I used everything in my box, to experiment with how it colours and shrinks: water colour pencils, crayons, oil pastels, shiva sticks, rub ons, but you know what? the best thing to get a lot of colour on was textas!  Also, on looking at other people's work, the lumiere paint worked really well (must get some!).  I think I could get the same effect with texta and a metallic rub on.
After lunch, we got onto making a layered piece with sheers and synthetics which could be burnt with the heat gun.

This was my workspace, a bit of a mess compared to the tidy space opposite me.

Here we all are watching as one of the pieces is transformed with the heat gun.

And another piece.  Every person's work was different and all were interesting to watch as the layers appeared.

Here is the stitching on the back of my piece.

And after we heat gunned it.
I did a little work on it at home, adding a bit of paint.

And this is what it currently looks like.  I felt the leaf with the puff paint - yes, I finally got to use some puff paint - needed some definition.  I also think this piece would do well with a bit of hand embroidery and beading, so you might see it again in a week or two when that is done.

Since I often burn and distress my fabrics, someone asked me why I went to the workshop.  My answer was simply, that you can always learn something new.  And I did learn lots of new things and met lots of new people.
One of the things I have been thinking on since this workshop, is a way I can tweak this technique to use in some of my work.  I have come up with an extension of this that also uses some of my soldered applique method. I am playing with these and will show you soon.

If you don't live and learn, then how do you learn to live?

Distressed nonwoven leaves

I have been working on some distressed leaf samples for a few days.
Basically, I gathered a range of non wovens and a few synthetics.
I painted the non woven fabrics.  The synthetics were all coloured.
I free machined two simple leaves on each fabric - a leaf with veins and a leaf without veins.

Then the fun began
I used the soldering iron to put holes in the leaves with veins
I used the heat gun to distress the leaves without veins

And here's what I got

This first sample was a synthetic, crisp, organza type fabric in an olive green.  The holes in the leaveswereeasy to cut, but when I used the heat gun, instead of bubbling or creating holes like most organzas, I got these wierd lines, like one of the warp or weft melted and the other way didn't.  This leads me to think that this is a type of shot organza with two different fibres going in the two directions.  Interesting.

The next sample was a crepe like chiffon fabric.  The hole burned very quickly, so care was needed and the veinless leaf shrank to half.  however there was some puckering in the unstitched fabric,so I cut a leaf from that, too.

This third synthetic was a chiffon, but crisper than the one above.  You can see it behaved in a very similar way.  I  varied the way I made the holes with the soldering iron to see what different effects I could get.

This is a beautiful,  gold  rainbow spun or light Lutradur.  It was easy to cut through with the soldering iron and reacted quickly to the heat gun, making holes inside the stitched area.  You can see on the right, that in unstitched areas, it bubbles.

The next sample was weed mat from the hardware.  This behaves in a very similar way to light lutradur (I suspect it is a form of lutradur sold as weed mat.  It even looks and feels like lutradur)

This sample is tyvek.  My treatment of this sample is slightly different to the others.  All went well with the soldering iron,  but my heat gun is extrememly hot and I know from experience that it will shrivel my tyvek up into nothing.  The unveined leaf was ironed rather than heat gunned.  There is a leaf cut from heat gunned tyvek at the right.  Very dense.

Although this face wipe looks woven, I suspect it is actually needle punched or bonded.  It looks and feels  like other non wovens, so I did a sample.  It burned with diffculty and you can just see some charring around the holes.  It did not melt but burned as you can see in the open leaf, so I suspect that it has some polyester, but also has cotton or other cellulose fibes in it.  It was worth a try.

Here is another type of face wipe, which behaves in exactly the same manner.

This very distressed sample is frost net.  I believe it is what the english call agricultural netting and also that it is very similar to nappy or diaper liner.  It distresses very very easily.  I would use the soldering iron, but not the heat gun - at least not when there are areas bounded by stitch.  You can see how the heat gun dissolved the fabric inside the stitching in the open leaf.  However in areas not bounded by stitch it shrank and frothed up as you can see at right.  I have used it this way to make froth for seaside pieces and it works well.

The final sample is heavy lutradur.  It distresses extremely well and the holes in the open leaf were really easy to make with the heat gun.

So, now I know how all these fabrics react to the soldering iron and the heat gun and I will most definitely be using some of these in my leaf project.

Don't get stressed - distress some synthetics

Tyvek experiments

After my post about tyvek the other day, I was intrigued with the gathering effect when you stitch fabric on one side and heat the tyvek on the other, so I had a play.

In the first sample, I stitched a grid, and filled in some of the squares to stop the tyvek shrinking.  As you can just see on the right, this worked, but the flat areas need some definition, perhaps with beading.

The next sample, I did a rough sketch of a leaf, filling in the leaf and tacking the tyvek down loosely around it.
You can see the leaf is flat in the centre, but again needs defining.  If I didd the stitching with a heavy thread in the bobbin and  tight bobbin, loose upper (cable stitch), or did this after the shrinking, perhaps this would make a good effect.

Here, I have added batting to the leaf to define it more.

In this sample, I stitched clam shells/scallops.  It is hard to see in the photo, due to such a dark fabric, but this makes oval puffs, which again could be defined with stitching.

In this sample, I stitched wavy lines and the puffs looked like curver shirring.  The puffs were not as defined in this sample, as I put some light iron on interfacing on the back of the fabric to see what would happen if the fabric was heavier.  Instead of shrinking, the tyvek tended to form holes, which is also useful, but not what I was looking for here.

In this sample I sewed relatively close straight lines and the fabric really bunched up nicely in lines.  It looks just like shirring with elastic, but of course, it doesn't stretch. quite nice.

In this last sample, I used a wavy spiral design to try and get some spots and puffs.  I also sandwiched the tyvek in batting to try and slow the shrinking.  This sample, although a bit dark to see the definition again, gave a really soft and defined texture that would really pop with some stitching and beads.
I think I will spend the next few evenings adding a bit of stitching to these samples, then I will show them to you.
I will hopefully be doing a workshop with Neroli Henderson at ATASDA Vic next week on tyvek and such, perhaps she will give me a few ideas.  I am sure she will.

Keep on playing, it keeps art fresh.

All about clouds

I have been putting together some samples for my Tangled textiles challenge. 
My first tryouts are to get some clouds going.
I thought I would give a few tips on how I made these samples.

This photo has lots of little wispy bits and lumpy bits on the edge and it was my inspiration for the samples.

 

In this sample (top is on left, bottom is on right), I used my  burning technique  to fuse down the edges of synthetic sheers.  I also layered some more sheers in the centres of the clouds, but found later it was not neccesary. 
Using sheers in this way, allows the thread painting to be much looser.  It is like an underpainting.  The thread painting would have to be very dense if there were no fabric underneath
I simply thread painted very loosely in circles (granite stitch) over the sheers, going out past the edges, to give some wispyness.  You can see from the back side (above) that the granite stitch is very loose.

I liked this, but decided to try out needlefelting the clouds on my embellisher.

 In this sample, (top is on left, bottom is on right) I started on the right hand side of the picture and felted onto the background with white. 
I kept the wool tops in a loose  sort of  yarn or sausage shape and went around the edges, trying to make the lumpy bits of the clouds show.  The result was not as fluffy as I had thought it would be.

On the left hand side of the picture, I put some blue tops down first. then added the white tops in little cotton ball shapes, only loosely rolled.  This gave a more whispy cloud, but very smooth edges.

In the picture of the back, you can see that both sides of the embellished piece could be used depending on how blended you want the clouds to appear.

So these samples have given me and you, I hope, a few ideas for creating clouds in landscapes.  You don't really have to stick to a photo.  Any children's geography book should give you some line drawings of clouds to use.  Practice with some different shaped clouds, such as wispy, windy day clouds, and have fun.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath Tagore

Burned fabrics

I thought I would experiment a little with my heat tool and see what I come up with.  There are lots of places to go for information on burning textiles, but my favourites are Kim Thittichai's Hot Textiles and Quilting Arts Magazine.

Here are a selection of synthetic, from lace, to felt, to lame'

Below, I have traced around a motif in some lace with the straight tip on the heat tool.  It creates a sealed edge that can be appliqued without fraying.

You can trace/cut around quite complicated motifs this way.

It works extremely well on Lutradur.

This lame' frays very easily, but  the shape burned out will not fray.

The same is true for this satin.

You can also use some of the other heads to emboss, or burn patterns into fabric.  This works really well on velvet. Above tou can see a flat circular head and a nine patch sort of head.  If you want to emboss instead of burn you need to be able to lower the heat on your tool.

Here are some applique leaves and motifs cut out.

1. from very thin chifon/organza
2. from plastic garbage bags
3. lame
4. a shot satin
5. silk
6. several layers og garbage bag plastic (seals them together)
7. Lace
8. crushed velvet
9. satin
10. an embossed satin

Using the circular head on plastic at a hot heat, then layering two colours

 Cutting out bubble wrap then melting the bubbles over a foil base

In these two lutradur samples, I have cut out a design with the straight tool, and burned with the shape tools.

In this satin sample, the melted fabric made strands as I pulled the tool away.  I definitely need to repeat this.

In this lutradur sample layered over a purple background, the left circles went totally through, whilst the right citcles only went halfway forming a fine lace.  I liked that.

In these to samples I was experimenting with getting the leaf to stitck to the fabric underneath.  It wasonly a partial success.

These two are embossed crushed velvet.  because the velvet was black, It is very hard to see the embossing here, but it is very visible when looking at it in reality.

Here I have both fully burned and partially burned lame.  The sample on the right is burning lame onto felt, which requires a higher heat to melt

If you look carefully, you can see the embossed circle on this shot satin.

Lame and organza on felt.

Here is the large lace motif burned out.

These textured satins were perfect for cutting geometrics out.  This would be a great addition to some cut work.

These two examples on black silk (which also needs a higher heat) were some scraps of fused fabrics I had.  I was not sure if it was a good idea to use them, but I am glad I did.  Since these were sheers, I put a little angelina between the two layers, I wanted to see if I could trap the angelina in between.  It worked, but I also discovered something else.

If the top fabric has fusible on the back, when you burn around it, you also fuse it to the background (so long as the background has a higher melting point).  Wow!  I found this such and exciting discovery that I tried a lot of fused fabrics on some brocade (below).

 

1.  grey satin
2. green garbag plastic
3. white metallic organza
4. textured satin
5. loose weave organza
6. velvet ribbon
7. lutradur

Now let's see who is thinking out there.  There is no way I could have ironed the fusible on to some of these fabrics, so how did I do it?
I simply put a piece of fusible larger than the shape (without the paper backing), between the two layers before I burned the line and it worked! So not only does this fuse the fabrics to the background, you don't have to iron any fusing first.
I would not trust this to be permanent, since the fusing is only a fine line, but for me it was a great discovery.
Using this method, you could have beautiful synthetic appliques (which are usually fiddly because the fabric is slippery, and can't be fused because the fabric will melt).  The appliques would easily stay in place for stitching, and because the fusible is not ironed in the centre, they would stay soft.
I will have to experiment with washing after stitching to see what happens to the unironed fusible, but my guess is it is so fine, it would not bea problem.
WOW - I feel like shouting Eureka!   I am most certainly going to use this in my secret activity that I told you I would tell you about soon.
Did you hear that girls?  Here's my first technique.

So excited.  No quote today
Oh and I got the book I won from workshop on the web yesterday

http://www.d4daisy.com/mandi.htm

I am really enjoying reading it and looking forward to doing the free online tutorials that go with it.
Vicki