Peculiar Posies Part 1

I have become enamored with interesting textiles and textures lately.  Don't get my wrong, I LOVE batiks and cottons, but sometimes it's fun to do something really outside the box.

Two years ago I discovered Terial Magic which is a spray that makes fabric VERY stiff, like cardboard or paper.  It's great for working with challenging fabrics.  

Here's a peek at my new project, Peculiar Posies.  I have been having fun with leather, taffeta, silk, velvet, all sorts of fun things.  

Here you can see I've put some leathers through each other!  And I found a leather with dots poked in it.

Here's my fun new flower that includes lots of interesting fabrics.  Since I usually only use bits of fabric for applique, I have been cutting small pieces and then applying the Terial Magic.  That way I don't saturate the entire fabric, just the small part I need.  It saves in the cost of Terial Magic.

Here is a velvet flower I've created from four different colors of hand-dyed velvet.  Such fun!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Free Motion Friday - Silk Trial Piece #1

Over the next few weeks I'm going to show you the three silk trial pieces I did all quilted up!  I'm excited to share them.  For these small samples (they're 8 x 10 inches or so) I decided to just quilt what came to me when I sat down.

This piece of background fabric an accident.  I put it on top of my ironing board to catch leftover dye when I was ironing dry pieces of Dupioni Silk using Terial Magic stiffener.  I decided it was a fun border so I put a butterfly of Dupioni silk and leather (body) on it and then had fun quilting it.

Here you can see the background fill.  I did circles and random things inside circles.  I wasn't worried about being perfect so many of them are a little wonky looking.

For the top and bottom I used a 50 weight variegated Aurifil Cotton thread in pink that I received as an Island Batik Ambassador.  It was so fun to watch it changing color and I like the look over the dye.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Terial Magic Review - Part 2

This is the second part of my review of the fabulous Terial Magic!  It is an amazing product that makes fine and fussy fabrics stiff and easy to work with.

For today's post I'm sharing a butterfly I made using dupioni silk I'd sprayed with Terial Magic.  It worked like a charm.  It was easy to cut and fuse with little fraying.

I decided to go outside the box with the body of my butterfly.  I fused a small scrap of leather!  To do this, I fused from the back side.  You can also see I had a fun time adding blanket stitching to my butterfly.  It's done with the fabulous Glide thread.

Here's a closeup of the leather.

 I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Terial Magic Review - Part 1

At International Quilt Festival Houston last fall I was given a bottle of Terial Magic to try.  I was excited to see how it worked.  Terial Magic is like a really, really, strong starch.  I was anxious to see how it would work on silks.  I love silks.  They are so shiny and fun, but I get frustrated when they ravel.  So...I wondered what would happen if I first used Terial Magic on them, cut them, and then did blanket stitch applique with the silk.  Here's what I found! (It was such a success...)

First, I sprayed the pieces of fabric until fully saturated.  I then dried them for about 1/2 an hour until damp and ready to iron.  I did discover that it's important to put paper underneath so dye doesn't get on your carpet (good thing I caught it fast and was able to clean most of it from the carpet!)

This is what the fabric looks like when it's been ironed dry.  It's stiff like paper or cardstock.  The smell of ironing Terial Magic was just like strong starch and not offensive to my sensitive nose at all.

I did put down an extra piece of fabric on my ironing pad before ironing so any extra dye from my dupioni silk would bleed onto the fabric instead of my ironing pad.

This particular silk is from Cambodia (a purchase from Golden Threads Silks in Houston) and due to the weave the fusible did not really want to stick to it.  I didn't have this trouble with any other silk.  However....it lead me to a question.  What if I simply glued the pieces on with a fine tip on an Elmer's School Glue bottle instead of using fusible.  I had to try out both of course!

This gorgeous coral fabric is a hand-dyed silk velvet that I purchased from a vendor from Australia while in Houston.  I know I took a picture of the name of the vendor but alas it is lost somewhere as I can't find the picture!  I really had to use a lot of Terial Magic to saturate the velvet, but it worked wonderfully.

Here is the glued block.

Here is the fused block.

Fused block finished. 

Glued block finished.

So, what is the difference?  Not a lot.  The fused block is stiff, the blued block is a little more bubbly as the fabric can move.  Are either of these things a big deal?  I don't think so.  I would use both methods again easily in a quilt.  The only thing I would note is that my silks are not necessarily color fast so I wouldn't want to wash the finished project and would keep it to a wall hanging.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy