My felt has arrived, I have my plan in mind and a little on paper. But - I have a question. Should I fuse a woven backing to my wool felt or will it hold up to extensive beading. My circle will be 5-6" in diameter and will later be sewn to more felt as a backing. I wonder if any one of all of us beaders knows the answer. If not, I'll let you all know how it turns out and then we will know. Thanks for any help anyone can give.
Happy Beading!!
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5 comments:
I would advise that you try a small amount of beading on it. I find that when I bead on felt, it puckers, but that is my own particular tension. I need something that has some stiffness. I actually like to bead on quilt squares with batting because the batting takes the threads and solves that issue for me.
So, try some with and without and see how your tension is and see if it acts nicely for you. If not than add an iron on stablizer.
Hope that helps.
Denise
i use felt all the time (both wool and synthetic) and it works great for me. what denise says is true, tension is key to whether a fabric works for you or not. the only fabric i can't work on is thin stretchy material.
I've used all sorts of things to bead on and one of my favs is canvas and the other is ultra suede. The former isn't expensive and you can get it at a Jo Ann's or other fabric store in black. I like to draw what I'm going to do, color it )with acid free pens) in and then sew the paper (by machine) just inside on the front the outside lines of whatever I'm working on. I leave an inch or 3 as I'll used that to tear the edges off as I finished it. Sometimes I sew an interleaving paper on the back. Whatever you use make sure the sticky stuff or the paper is acid free and pH neutral. I use felt as a filler for making dimensional beading, but otherwise it gets a little 'hairy' for me as I'm working. I don't want my pages to be too heavy so I'm using lighter weight fabrics like cotton and silk for my back grounds. Hope this helps. Also if you go to Robins books such as "One Bead at a Time," you'll see how she does it.
You've gotten useful advise from the 3 comments above... and I agree about "trying it first" to test your own particular tension. As many know, my stabilizer of choice is acid-free interleaving paper, or any other thin acid-free paper... works like a charm!
Oh yes, I forgot to mention, that rice paper for Sumi painting works well too, and is available at many art and stationery shops.
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