A Shimmering Wonderland Foiled again Angie Hughes Materials required A4 piece of black cotton velvet A4 piece of iron on Vilene A4 piece of Bondaweb fusible webbing A4 piece hotspots (optional) A collection of transfoils A piece of black polyester organza a bit bigger than A4 A piece of sequin waste or stencil Sweetie foil (must be aluminium not plastic) Sequins Micro-glitter (www.springwoodhousedesigns.co.uk) Baking parchment a bit bigger than A4 Basic sewing kit Sewing machine, with free machine embroidery foot Iron and board Hot air tool (optional)
Cut out velvet and Vilene and lay out on an ironing pad. Iron the Vilene onto the back of the velvet to stabilise the velvet - especially if you have a very floppy type. You really do need cotton velvet because of all the ironing. Other velvets can get squashed flat and the perkiness of the velvet pile is integral to the broken surface of the foil later. Imagine you are gluing the foil to the top of each velvet pile fibre. When you heat it with the hot air tool later, the Bondaweb fusible webbing breaks up, letting a bit of the black background show through. The effect is very moody and delicious. Draw a landscape design onto the paper side of a piece of Bondaweb. You can be quite creative as to where you place your hotspots on the velvet surface. I have cut off the first segment of my design from the Bondaweb and used it as a template for the hotspots, as you can see below. (You don t have to use hotspots but I like the different quality they give to the surface.) Trim off a little extra from the top of this piece to give a little black line space of velvet between it and the next segment. Iron the hotspot piece to the surface of the velvet after covering it with baking parchment to protect the iron - see above. You need your iron to be quite hot for this as the hotspot paper carrier is quite thick and the heat needs to penetrate through. Lift the paper at one end to check that the spots of glue have stuck. If not, turn up the heat or hold the iron on the surface for longer. Angie Hughes workshop June 2009 2
Build up the surface with layers of Bondaweb and hotspots segments until the velvet is covered. Make sure all the glue is well stuck to the surface but try not to 'over-cook' the Bondaweb with too much heat. Pick out a nice colour transfoil (mine is actually pale blue) and a piece of sequin waste. Peel the paper from the top segment of Bondaweb and place the sequin waste over the top. Place the transfoil on top of the sequin waste and baking parchment over the whole lot. Turn your iron down to a wool setting (it could be lower if you have a fierce iron - start cool and turn up by increments if the foil doesn t stick first time). Read the notes on foiling at the end of the article. If you peel off the paper and work each segment one at a time, you can change the colours as you work down the piece. If you take all the papers off in one go, there is a danger of getting foiling areas you don t want by accident. Keep adding different colours to the Bondaweb until you ve covered the segment. Cover the whole piece with baking parchment even if you are just working in one corner. I ve seen students melt off large areas of lovely foiling by not watching what s going on at the back end of the iron. Angie Hughes workshop June 2009 3
You can add sequins here and there in tandem with your foiling. They will iron onto exposed Bondaweb. Also, try something like the little vials of micro glitter (below right) which can be sprinkled onto the exposed Bondaweb. Note: it won t stick once there is foil on the surface. Keep working on your surface with foils, sequins and glitter - it s about time you consumed some chocolate and had a cup of tea - you're going to need the sweetie foil next. Flatten out your foil (in this case silver - we re going to make a moon). Cut a piece of Bondaweb the same size and iron onto the back of the foil. Draw a circle about 4 cms diameter and cut out. Peel of the paper backing and iron onto the surface, positioning it to the right hand side of your piece. Angie Hughes workshop June 2009 4
. Work the surface all over now using transfoils, sweetie foils, sequins and glitter until you have covered your surface with a pleasing array of twinkly decoration. Lay the piece of organza over the surface and iron on; it will catch here and there to exposed bits of Bondaweb. You can pin all round as well for safety. Have another cup of tea - you might need more chocolate for fuel this time. Set up your sewing machine, thread with a complementary colour and set it for straight stitch. Stitch along all the black lines to anchor the surface; then take out the pins. Using a free machine embroidery foot, drop your feed dogs and free stitch around the trees. Angie Hughes workshop June 2009 5
Stitch away until you have the bare bones of the piece stitched. There is a good reason for mapping out the design in stitch as you will be able to see the pattern on the back of the piece. This will be useful later. Here, I m giving the moon a bit of a glow, hopping over the trees. Snip off the threads when you ve finished. You can embellish with straight stitch all over if you are still a bit nervous of machine stitch. If you are more confident, read on. Here, I m loosening the bobbin tension just slightly to achieve my favourite corded whip stitch. (Don t have the collywobbles - you can get a separate bobbin case for this; if you have top loading bobbins, try just tightening the top tension). It is very subtle. The bobbin thread whips up to just cover the top thread. Try fiddling about with the tensions to see what happens - it s great fun - really. Run your machine as fast as you can bear it and move your hands really slowly. This is the best way to gain control of your stitching. I ve done some corded whip stitch. The image below right just about shows the difference between this and ordinary straight stitch, it looks like a couched fine cord without the sore fingers. I ve wound a silver cord onto the bobbin and changed the tension so it runs through the bobbin. This is where seeing your design is helpful, you can follow the already stitched lines (below left). Angie Hughes workshop June 2009 6
I ve stitched some strange plant things in corded whip again - see right. You can stitch whatever and wherever you like now but bear in mind that if you want to burn off some of the organza with your hot air tool, stitches resist the heat for longer than unstitched bits. Burning off cut away large areas of organza or it might turn into an unpleasant crust when heated. Plug in your hot air tool. Get melting open the windows if you are susceptible to fumes although it really is all over in seconds. Don t waggle your tool (so to speak) but dip in and out (oh lord it gets worse). When you pull away, the melting stops instantly. Angie Hughes workshop June 2009 7
In the pic above you can see an alternative method for trees. Well, there you have a shimmering wonderland - hope you enjoy experimenting with the techniques. Angie Hughes is a textile artist and tutor, who lives and works in Ledbury, Herefordshire. She has been interested in textiles since she left school although only discovered creative embroidery in 1994 when she began studying City & Guilds at Malvern Hills College. While a student, she won the prestigious Charles Henry Foyle Trust Award for Stitched Textiles with her piece 'Unfolding Word' and had 'Shroud' accepted for Art of the Stitch. Her artwork is inspired by many themes but particularly poetry or text and the natural world, particularly plant forms. She teaches in her studio, Ledbury Artplace www.ledburyartplace.com and for Guilds and groups. Her book, 'Stitch, Cloth, Paper and Paint' was published by Search Press and is available from Angie's website www.angiehughes.com. Angie's blog http://angietextilenotes.blogspot.com is also interesting. A note about foiling Transfoils do not need heat to stick to a surface; they will stick to anything sticky. In this instance, you are warming the Bondaweb and, by doing this, you melt it to make it sticky. Gentle heat and light pressure works best. You might want to experiment on some scrap velvet before you begin. If you don t press hard, the sequin waste should not stick to the Bondaweb. Pull the pile away when you remove it. I have taught this technique many times and lots of minor disasters have occurred before students have got the knack of it. If you can t get it, leave out the sequin waste trick and just foil straight onto the Bondaweb. The reason I use sequin waste is so that I get a blend of different colours together. You could get a similar effect by crumpling up the transfoil and rubbing it to damage and remove little areas of foil before you start. If you get the knack, you should end up with little dots of foil. Angie Hughes workshop June 2009 8