I've been playing with materials and my laminar machine- I bought, secondhand ,on EBay. I've discovered how to inlay two foils, gold and silver, over a design I first printed on actitate.The end result can be bonder webbed on to fabric or overlaid with a another layer, also coated in foil and made into a badge. The odd thing is you might imagine that starting with actitate the final piece would be rigid but it's amazingly soft and flexible.
There's a facebook page called Virtual Village Hall, I have been following it, and currently looking at a lady doing felted beads. They have lots of different activities on each day, often fitness, as well as craft. Might be worth everyone having a look.
Julie Wallhead
How to make one of Julie’s
tulips
Needed:
Fabric scraps (7cm by 12cm) for the tulip heads
green fabric for the stems and leaves
thick plastic straws (smoothie
ones) or an alternatively rolled paper
double sided sticky tape
thread
and a little stuffing
Tulip head - 7 cm x 12cm piece of fabric; fold over both long ends with a small seam as little as you can. I machine stitched them down, but you could just iron them. You then stitch the short ends together (right sides together) to make a tube, its best to back tack at the start and finish. I found I was chain stitching; it saves thread and time. You could make them a little bigger if you want. Turn then right sides out.
Tulip stem – take straw and cut your fabric by about 1-2cm longer, as you need to turn one end into the straw to make the bottom. Cut the fabric wide enough to wrap around the straw and turn under the edge to make a seam so you can stitch it down. I found that using a little more fabric was better ( so you weren’t stitching into the line of tape). Along the long length of fabric, apply a strip of double sided tape and attach the straw to it. This seam is best put to the back when attaching the tulip leaf.
Tulip leaf – make a rectangle 7cm by 14cm and fold it in half length ways and cut half a tulip leaf shape (thin at top and wider at bottom), so when you open it out it is a whole leaf. If you make a template this will speed things up. Sew a small seam around two shapes in fabric leaving an open bottom, now you can do many things at this point, you can be really precise, use interfacing, or wadding in the middle and press the seams including clipping the seams. I didn’t do any of that, I like the effect of them just being turned inside out and left. You need to turn under a small allowance from the open bottom, or you can stitch a small seam on all pieces first. I didn’t and just turned under. You could even quilt the leaf.
Construction
- sew along an edge of the tulip petals with a running stitch and gather
and put the stem inside, it needs to be sticking up about 2-3cms inside, too
much and it gets in the way. Trial and
error is needed. You will find your own
way. Then stitch this to the stem, just
a few stitches around should suffice. A little stuffing needs adding around
the inside stem of the straw, again trial and error, but less is best I
think. It doesn’t need to be heavy or
the tulip will droop.
Now to stitch the cross shape for the petals. So fold the fabric in half (I used the seam as a guide), and do a few stitches on top of each other, then the slightly fiddly bit of sewing the other two side together, just take a bit of time on the first one or two and you will find your own way.
Add the leaf to the stem, trying to keep the stem seam to the back, just wrap the leaf around the stem, I found that placing it on the middle of the back seam and then wrapping around was fine. Hold in place and it should just about meet in the middle front. Sew a few stitches in either side of the leaf to hold it in place. I found stitching up about 2-3cms was best as it held the leaf tightly enough to give it some structure without them being to droopy. If you’ve used interfacing or wadding it might not need as much stitching. Have fun.
