Experimenting with a Heat Gun and Polyester Fabrics

1st December 2013

Went for a beach walk, amazingly no wind at all today and quite mild.

I have used a heat gun before to emboss my cards but never used it on fabric so today I decided to play!!!

I collected a variety of suitable fabrics.. 

..and stitched in layers onto linen scrim...

...using free machining, cotton thread and following the design on the fabric.

Next came the heat gun but I found I had to cut the top fabric to allow the heat gun to work. I did this with my soldering iron....

I loved the effect and found that if I focussed the gun closely to the fabric it more or less disappeared and revealed the base linen scrim. The edges are really hard but I do like the effect and think hand stitching and beads could really enhance the piece.

Next I placed some scraps of patterned polyester onto a piece of acrylic felt and Sizoflor..

..and heated gently about 15 cms away...

I love the 'organic' shaped edge.

I then sandwiched scraps of the same fabric between 2 layers of organza...

..cut the edges and centre  with my soldering iron....

...and blasted with the heat gun..

I found this organza did not melt very well so added more scraps of fabric and attached this with heat to acrylic felt and sizoflor. This is very textured, don't know what to use it for but it was fun making it. 

So I had a great time experimenting and found out it is very difficult to control the outcome when using heat!!!.... a bit like dyeing.... quite exciting!