For a number of years now I have been playing around with various ways of heating fabrics to create some very funky effects. I've used candles, soldering irons and heat guns on various fabrics to achieve some very cool effects. Below are some tutorials to give you an idea of what kind of techniques you can use to alter everything from felt to organza to embellish your dolls. This list is by no means exhaustive - there are so many ways to use these ideas - my brain is burning up with inspiration.
Felt and a Heat Gun
One fabric that really does fantastic things when heated with a heat gun is felt. You must use a synthetic felt as wool will not work. Kunin felt, which is a polyester felt works the best, but I've also had good results with acrylic and nylon felt. Click here to read about Judi Wellnitz's experimentation with felt.
When I took a course with Allison Marano we used a very similar technique to create the bodice on this doll with free motion machine embroidery acting as the resist, so that when heated the stitching stayed intact and the felt around it developed lovely lacey holes. Allison's technique was especially exciting as she heated the felt while it was on the doll so that it moulded to the doll's shape. Warning: you need to put a wet cloth over the doll's body before you put on the felt or your doll could be burned. If you get a chance to take a course with Allison - do. She has great techniques and is also very funny.
Before taking the course with Allison I used a similar technique with felt to create the wings for my doll, Bea in her Bonnet. However, instead of using stitching as the resist to the heat I used stencilled paint. click here to see a Stewart Gill tutorial on how to use stencils to create a great effect with paint that would be perfect for using with felt.
After applying the paint you can blast it with a heat gun and the areas around the paint will begin to form holes. Keep in mind that without some form of structure, the felt will warp. If warping is what you are after then go ahead and heat it up, but if you want it to maintain its shape you have to wire the felt (as I did with Bea in her Bonnets wings) or form it on the doll as Allison did or find some other creative an ingenious way of forming the felt.
I love what this mixed media artist did with felt in this tutorial - she used paint and a heat gun to make felt look like leather. I wonder if you could sew this felt after treating it? I'd love to see that felt/leather made up into little doll shoes like this free boot pattern by Barbara Willis.
Burning Organza or Other Sheer Fabrics
Over at the DuhBe blog learn how to burn the edges of organza to create fabric roses by clicking here. This technique uses a candle to seal the raw edges of the fabric and to make it curl pleasingly like flower petals; however, you can also use a soldering iron to seal the edges of synthetic sheers if you prefer.
A Load of Old Blogocks uses a slightly different method of creating flowers from burned organza. Click here for another idea for making flowers.
While you could certainly use gorgeous fabric roses like these to embellish dolls, you can also use the technique to create other things. I used an almost identical technique to create the seaweed effect at the waist, shoulder and on the headdress of my Treasures of the Deep doll.
Patti Culea uses this technique a fair bit. Watch this video to see how she decorates a flat doll with burned organza:
You can even use candles to burn silk, check out the Craftside blog for tips on making burnt edges on silk leaves here.
Tyvek
Another material that is completely hot to trot is Tyvek. Tyvek does fantastic things when heated. Click here to get idea of what Tyvek does when heated.
So what do you do with this amazing, bubbling material. You can make embellishments like these Tyvek leaves, click here for the tutorial.
Or you can melt Tyvek over a wire base. In this case, you get a more lacey effect as the Tyvek melts and pulls away from the wire. See the Purple Missus blog for some great ideas here. And here Purple Missus uses Tyvk over wire mesh.
I used a wire form to create this Tyvek hat for Bea in her Bonnet.
Ironing Stamps onto Velvet
You can use a household iron to stamp onto velvet and emboss the design within the nap of the fabric. See how here.
Angelina Fibre
Hot Fix Angelina Fibre can be used to great effect. I did a whole Freebie Friday just on this particular wonder fibre, click here for all those links.
There are so many other hot techniques out there, but I hope these gets your fibre experiments heating up.
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