Fabric paper wall hanging

This was quite a quick project using fabric paper. I used remnants from 3 sheets of fabric paper I'd made a while ago - deep pink, purple and blue. I backed them all with felt, cut shapes out and sewed around the edges. I did a bit of free motion embroidery on the blue piece.

I coloured some paper flowers, then layered them with beads and sequin flowers and sewed them to the fabric paper shapes, then added more sequin flowers, beads and ribbon. A couple of squares with flowers and brads, and a few tiny tags with charms and brads finished the piece off.


It will be going to a new home at the end of the month, I hope whoever gets it likes it.

Fabric postcard

I have been on a couple of Angie Hughes courses at Ledbury Artspace recently. The first course was all about working with velvet, transfer foils, organza and stitch. I have a half finished piece from that course, but as I have very little experience of free motion embroidery I wanted to get more before I try and finish it off.

So, I thought I'd make a fabric postcard as a practice piece.

I took some red cotton velvet and masked out some rectangles then ironed bondaweb all over it. I covered it with organza and stitched around the rectangles, then used vermicelli stitch to cover the area around the rectangles, using a variegated thread. I hand sewed little flower sequins and beads into the rectangles. Finally, I backed the piece with pelmet vilene and finished the edges with a zig zag stitch. Frankly, I was surprised at how well it went, because I still don't feel competent with machine embroidery!

Paverpol - Altered Element design team

Altered Element sent me some Paverpol fabric stiffener, some Paverplast, and some 'fabric' for use with Paverpol which is made from beaten tree bark (looks a bit like a very large piece of flattened silk rod!). These materials are all way out of my comfort zone, and I wasn't sure what the heck to do with them!

I surfed the net to see what other people had done with Paverpol, and it was interesting to see, but not 'me'. So I had a little play, and here are the results of my experiments.

I wanted to see if Paverpol could stiffen fabric yet maintain transparency. And the answer is - sort of! I covered a glass bowl with cling film, then draped organza over the top. I cut some excess organza away, then applied the Paverpol fabric stiffener with a paintbrush, and left to dry. Once dry, I trimmed the 'brim' into a flower shape. This is the result:


It's sort of pretty, but a bit flimsy. I had planned to add some hand embroidery - maybe some french knots or lines of stitch form top to bottom, but it is too flimsy for that. I may yet add some curved lines of Friendly Plastic all around the outside of bowl sides, to make a sort of supporting framework, and perhaps do some gold stitching afterwards. If I can find time and my mojo at the same time!

My second experiment with Paverpol was to use it to stiffen and adhere fabric to a metal tin - every other glue I have tried has left bubbles or marks, so I was very pleased to see that the Paverpol left a flawless surface. This was very easy to do - just cut a straight edge at the bottom of your fabric, add Paverpol to the tin itself and start wrapping your fabric around the tin, coating with Paverpol as you go. I then took some thin strips of gold Friendly Plastic, heated them in a puddle of water in my melt pot, and squiggled them around onto the tin. The Friendly Plastic adheres to the fabric really easily - which can be both blessing and problem LOL.

I love the fabric I used - I've been hoarding it for ages!


I finished it off by adding 3 turquoise Friendly Plastic 'flowers', made by laying a strip of FP on a non stick sheet, heating with a heat gun, using a cutter to cut the shape, and allowing to cool completely before removing the shape. I laid the flowers on top of the gold squiggles, heated it all with my heat gun and used an embossing tool to make a centre and some depressions in the petals. I rather like this!





I will try to play with the Paverplast soon but that may be more of a challenge...