April 30, 2014

Silk Fusion...

I posted a teaser picture of my, then, WIP  from my Arts & Crafts time a couple weeks ago.


I figured it was time to show what it looks like now!



First off, I wanted to make sure that it was DRY so it didn't de-laminate when I took the screen / tulle off. So I've had it pinned in my basement for the last couple weeks. 


It looks a little scrunched up on the one side but that's a by product of hanging it to dry. It will totally iron out. I hope ;-)

I peeled the tulle off, which came off fairly easy. Aside from the 'fringe' edging which took a couple seconds to work out but once you get one edge it came off ok.

The next step was to sandwich it in fabric and gently iron it in small sections WITHOUT rubbing the iron. So I went hunting around for some fabric I could use. I didn't have any 'scrap' or 'waste' fabric kicking around so I grabbed an old fitted sheet that I was going to toss. Of course I washed it before though ;-)

It worked fabulous. I had to tension the silk a bit to iron it out so that there wasn't any bunching where the wrinkles were. Overall it turned out well. 


I wasn't sure what I was going to make when I initially went to the workshop, and I still don't ;-) So at the time I made it bigger so I could decide that later. I would rather make it too big then not enough. So now comes the task of trying to decide what I'm going to make. It's going to take a bit of thought. I want it to showcase how beautiful it really is.

I have enough of the silk and medium to make numerous other projects and I have an idea of what I'm going to make this time ;-)

In case anyone is wondering I bought the Tussah Silk Top (in dyed and undyed) from TheWackyWindmill on Etsy. She doesn't have any undyed Tussah Silk but I'm sure if you contacted her via Etsy that she could create a listing for you. I can't emphasize how much silk fusion you could make with 2 bags of Tussah silk and the medium. I have just over 2/3 of each bag left and I made a fairly large piece of fabric.

I also bought the textile medium from Shuttleworks Fiber Arts. If you call them you can order over the phone and they'll ship it to you for just the cost of the product and shipping. Some places charge an exuberant amount for shipping, not them. Just the shipping cost :-)

Also if anyone wants to know where they can get a quick tutorial on how to do Silk Fusion here's a brief description HERE. The only modification I would recommend would be: when your pulling the Tussah Silk to make sure that it's light and wispy. Meaning not a thick section. Otherwise it is going to take a lot of soap/water to make sure that it's wet the whole way through. Which is going to be easier for you!

Now I'm off to get my knit on :-)

Happy Knitting :-)

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the mention Melissa! Looks like your silk fusion turned out great!

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