July meeting

We changed the date of our meeting (July 2) and held it at Brigitte's club house.  With summer and the date change we only had 7 attend. Sandi couldn't stay but came by with her two lovely granddaughters to see what we were up to.

It was a Silk Day!  Although some of the things we did to the silk would make you cringe.

We started out with our Faux Metal Fabric.  The instructions can be found in Quilting Arts Magazine, Issue 93, July/August 2018.

We started out by scrunching the piece of silk and steaming the creases into it.  You are trying to form wrinkles.

Scrunched and steamed

Ready to be fused

The silk was laid out over a piece of cotton and two layers of Misty Fuse and then covered with the non-stick teflon sheet or parchment paper and pressed.  You had to be careful not to iron the wrinkles out, hence "pressing".

Ironed down, lovely wrinkles and creases.

Next the whole thing was painted with black acrylic paint thinned slightly with water.  The dollar store kind is great.

Silk colour doesn't matter

Half way there

Adding the colour with metallic paint

We set them aside and played with silk fibres while the paint dried.  After lunch we came back to add the colour with metallic paints.  Some were working from pictures of rusty metal or other surfaces.

And the final results, just need to dry completely and be heat set.  What will you do with yours?

The results, really more impressive in person!

Now on to Silk Fusion.

Piles of luscious silk fibres

Choose your colours

In silk fusion you use silk roving to create silk fabric to manipulate, cut and embellish.  The roving is pulled from the hank and layered on a piece of tulle.  The layering is similar to that done when wet felting.

Laying out the silk fibres

You need at least 3 layers of silk roving, changing direction with each layer to give it strength.  When you are happy with what the top layer looks like it is time to cover it with another piece of tulle and start fusing it together.  The fusing requires wetting the layers of silk and tulle with warm soapy water.  Just a bit of dish soap in the water will do.  

Layered and covered, all ready to be fused.

Brushing the soapy water through the layers.

Not enough medium can have the layers separate.

     

     

You want to saturate the layers but not swimming in water.  Next you add fabric medium in the same way; brushing it into the fibres from both sides until well saturated.  We used Golden Fabric Painting Medium GAC-900, it is available at Opus in Kelowna.  Other fabric mediums will work as well.

The results!  Hanging to dry, plastic and towels underneath; it will drip and you don't want fabric medium on your floor or carpet.  Once completely dry it needs to be heat set with your iron, protect it with parchment paper or a teflon sheet.


You can cut it up and fuse it, make book covers and baskets.  Add beads and embellishments.....endless possibilities!