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A Bit of Stitch www.abitofstitch.com

Needle Felting With Silk Chiffon! Make a beautiful fabric collage with silk chiffon fabrics and a needle felting machine! Use the finished fabric for lovely, wearable art garments or crafty projects like this little bird notebook.

More project ideas are shown at the end of this tutorial for your inspiration.

The book cover is embroidered with designs from the Little Bird Scroll design set. Hand embroidered lazy daisy chains and colorful beads complete the look.

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Materials: Silk chiffon fabrics (use a color-coordinated assortment of both prints and solids) Wash-away fabric type stabilizer Clear monofilament thread Why use silk chiffon? Silk is a very strong fiber that resists breaking and fraying better than polyester chiffon. It also holds the texture created with the needles when felted, while polyester chiffon tends to release the texture too soon. Silk chiffon has earned the reputation of being a difficult fabric to sew with, but this challenging fabric becomes stable and easily handled when needle felted! Things to remember when needle felting by machine: • Do not try to hold on to the fabric too tightly; let the machine “eat” the fabric. Encourage ruching! • You have to “drive” the fabric… there are no feed dogs! • If you do not like your results, gently pull it out and try again. • Do NOT twist or pivot the fabric while the needles are engaged. You will break your needles! • Do not needle felt in any one place too long.

Things you need to know before you begin: Needle felting silk chiffon reduces the size of the fabric by approximately 50%, so begin with at least twice as much fabric as you will need for your finished project. Start by cutting the silk chiffon into Irregularly-sized, elongated shapes. Cut away the selvages. Avoid making the pieces too small. It is better to start with a larger piece and trim it down as needed. The pieces used for our sample projects ranged in size from 6 to 10 inches. When the finished project will be small and dainty, smaller pieces will create a more interesting texture. Larger pieces will work better for larger projects such as our jacket. To conserve fabric, begin with only a few pieces; you can always cut more as you need them. Use only a fabric type wash-away stabilizer. Clear film will not work. The stabilizer should be cut at least 50% larger than the size of the desired project. It may be necessary to work with several different pieces of stabilizer. If you need to join several pieces of stabilizer, sew them together with water-soluble thread. The jacket shown was created with five different pieces of stabilizer: one for the back, each sleeve and both sides of the front. Whatever project you choose, it will be necessary to enlarge the project pattern by at least 20%. Silk shrinks slightly when washed. As you will be using water-soluble stabilizer and it will be necessary to wet the finished fabric, remember to allow for that shrinkage!

Please note! While it is possible to use hand needle felting needles to create silk chiffon fabric collages, it is highly recommended that you use a needle felting machine. All of the projects in this tutorial were made on the 7 needle Baby Lock Embellisher. When using the 12 needle Baby Lock Embellisher, it is highly recommended that you remove nine needles, leaving three in the center front of the needle head. Removing and changing needles is easiest done by removing the entire needle head. Check your machine manual for directions.

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Needle felt the rest of the piece in place by working in a half moon pattern, radiating from the attached edge toward the opposite side.

Needle felting: Trace the pattern onto the stabilizer using a water-soluble marker. Begin in the center of the stabilizer and needle felt one piece of chiffon into place. Attach this first block from the center of the chiffon and work toward the edges in a circular pattern. Needle felt the entire block, attaching it to the stabilizer completely. Work slowly and remember not to twist or pivot the fabric while the needles are engaged. Try to keep the stabilizer flat and free of puckers by applying pressure on the stabilizer with the sides of your hands while felting.

Add additional pieces of chiffon in the same manner, working toward each edge of the stabilizer. Remove any large wrinkles or puckers in the stabilizer if they form by pulling up the needle felted fabric and redoing that portion. Should the stabilizer develop a hole, patch it with another layer of stabilizer. Try to avoid large wrinkles or puckers in the needle felted chiffon. Small wrinkles and puckers are desirable as they add interesting texture, but too many will cause the fabric to be stiff in that area. Avoid overlapping the chiffon pieces too much. Any more than 1/2” will be too much, but any less than 3/8” will produce an unstable fabric!

Needle felt that edge in place completely.

Add another piece to one side of the attached chiffon block. Overlap the edges of the chiffon pieces at least ½” and begin needle felting along the overlapped edge.

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Covering the “seams” There are now “seams” where the different blocks of fabric meet and overlap. Trim away any long whiskers. Cover the raw edges and give extra support to each seam by needle felting strips of bias cut silk chiffon, silk ribbon or other light-weight rayon or silk ribbon yarn onto the places where the fabric blocks overlap. The photo on the right shows a 1” piece of silk chiffon being needle felted in place.

Strips that are approximately 3/4” to 1” wide provide a subtle seam covering, while wider strips form ruffles. Begin needle felting slowly and gently along the center of the strip. Let the needles “eat” the fabric; do not pull or tug on the strip. The photo on the left shows the project fabric with all of its seams covered. The photo below on the right shows a detailed view of the jacket. You can see where ribbon yarn was used to cover some seams and bias cut chiffon was used to cover others.

Allow excess fabric to hang over the edges of the stabilizer. It is better to trim away extra fabric than to come up short! Avoid having very small pieces joined together along the edges.

Helpful Hint! As noted on page 5 of these directions, it will be necessary to stipple stitch the entire piece of needle felted silk chiffon to permanently secure the texture. However, if you wish to add wide ruffle seam coverings to your project fabric, you will find it easier to stipple stitch the base project fabric before adding the ruffles. Once the ruffles have been added, either stipple stitch them in place or sew a fancy motif stitch down their centers as shown in the detailed view of the baby bonnet on the left.

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To create a little rosette, grasp the end of a short length of ribbon yarn or a narrow strip of bias cut chiffon between your forefinger and thumb. Hold firmly while you wind the

strip gently around the held end, forming a flat jellyroll between your finger and thumb. Fold the end under the rosette and hide completely, or let a little bit extend out from underneath as you

place it carefully on the project fabric. Lower the needles slowly into the center of the rosette and turn the wheel by hand a few times. Then felt it down completely, working in a circular motion. Do not felt the little tail if you left one. The photo below is a group of three rosettes made from narrow strips of

silk chiffon. A tiny bit of fancy yarn in a variegated pink color was needle felted on top of each rosette for further contrast. The photo on the right shows a grouping of rosettes on the back of a baby bonnet. Other light-weight silk fabrics and silk ribbon may also be used to make very pretty rosettes. Variegated colors work best! Making the needle felting permanent: The texture of needle felted silk fabric is not permanent until you make it so. To make it as permanent as possible, it will be necessary to stipple stitch the needle felting in place. Use clear monofilament thread for an invisible finish, or use a decorative thread for added interest. The bobbin thread color should coordinate with the project fabric. White bobbin thread works just fine with fabric that is created from mostly white and light colored chiffons. Black bobbin thread works better for darker chiffons. Stipple in a tight, loopy pattern. Do not worry about crossing your stitching lines; instead, concentrate on securing each area and each seam completely. Do not forget to stipple stitch over any ribbon rosettes you may have added. A loopy, lazy daisy stitch works well for this, as shown in the photo

to the left. (The stipple stitching for these sample photos is shown in black for viewing ease. Normally the stitching would not show up at all unless you use a contrasting or decorative thread for this step.) Other fancy motif stitching may be used along the seams instead of stippling, as shown in detail view of the baby bonnet on the previous page.

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Adding Embroidery: At this point you may wish to add embroidery designs to the needle felted fabric. Choose embroidery designs that are lightly digitized. Open, lacy designs work best as they will not add bulk or stiffness to the finished fabric. Although the needle felted fabric is already stabilized with wash-away stabilizer, it will be necessary to add additional permanent stabilizer to keep the embroidery design intact after the wash-away stabilizer is removed. Use a sheer mesh cut-away stabilizer. Spray the stabilizer with a very light coating of temporary spray adhesive, hoop the sticky stabilizer and drape the needle felted fabric over the hoop. Place the hoop on a hard, flat surface and pat the fabric onto the stabilizer with your hand. If you do not wish to use temporary spray adhesive, pin the fabric to the hooped stabilizer, keeping the pins well away from the needle’s path. It is possible to hoop needle felted chiffon fabric as long as you do so gently. Loosen the bottom hoop generously, position the fabric in the hoop and gently place the inner hoop into position. Tighten the hoop screw just enough to firmly hold the fabric. Hooped needle felted chiffon is best stabilized by adding a layer of sheer mesh cut-away to the back of the hoop once the fabric is in place. Use a light coating of temporary spray adhesive to hold it in place. The stabilizer should be large enough to cover the entire back of the hoop. After the stitching is complete, loosen the hoop screw before removing the inner hoop. After stitching the designs, cut away the excess stabilizer, trimming as close as possible to the stitching around the perimeter of the design. Do not cut away the stabilizer in any open parts within the design unless absolutely necessary to preserve the drape and appearance of the finished project. Removing the stabilizer and finishing the fabric: Follow the manufacturer’s directions to remove the water-soluble stabilizer. Two or three long soakings usually work better than one. Do not wring or twist the wet fabric. Roll the fabric up in a thick towel and squeeze to remove as much water as possible. Lay the fabric on another towel and allow to dry until just damp. Iron from the wrong side using a press cloth. Silk fabrics will withstand high heat. The combination of heat and steam (from the damp fabric) will finish setting the texture of the felted fabric. Monofilament or decorative threads are not always heat proof. Test the thread’s heat temperature resistance before beginning. Projects that must be cleaned eventually should be hand washed in cool water with very mild detergent. Do not machine wash, even on a delicate cycle. Do not dry clean. Repeat the same drying process as noted above, ironing with a press cloth while still slightly damp. Garments made from needle felted fabric store best laid flat or gently folded with acid-free tissue paper. Dimensional detailing, such as the silk fabric flowers on the jacket in the photo on the right, should be protected with extra tissue during storage. A blast of warm steam will restore them after cleaning or storing.

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Sweet Baby Bonnet

Silk chiffon, crepe, organza and burn-out silk velvet create this delicately textured baby bonnet. Tiny pearl beads add a touch of shine. Silk organza strips were used as the seam coverings for the bonnet fabric pieces. Silk organza creates beautiful, needle felted ruffles! A pretty heirloom stitching motif secures the ruffles permanently. The little butterfly embroidery design is from the Lightly Lacy collection.

Antique Lace & Chiffon

Jacket A lovely marriage of needle felting and antique lace produced this elegant jacket! The yoke and sleeve caps are formed from needle felted silk chiffons. Ruffles of silk organza needle felted in place and then embroidered with heirloom stitching cover the seam between the chiffon fabric and the antique lace. Made-in-the-hoop fabric flowers stitched on light-weight silk satin and taffeta decorate the neck. The flowers are part of the Flower Brooch design set. Designs from the Isabella collection are embroidered on the silk chiffon fabric.

See another detailed view on the last page!

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Silk Chiffon Needle felted

Jacket

The jacket on this page was made using silk chiffon in black, three different shades of gray, and one black and gray print. As you can see, the fabric remains soft enough to drape prettily with just the right amount of body necessary for its slightly fitted profile. The embroidery designs are from the Lightly Lacy design collection. These designs work very well with sheer, delicate fabrics.

Add a ruffle!

No need to run a gathering thread to attach a silk chiffon or organza ruffle! Simply let the felting needles do the job. Instead of placing right sides together, trim the seam allowance to ¼”, overlap the selvage edges ½” (ruffle fabric on the top) and needle felt along the raw edge of the ruffle fabric. Keep a bit of tension on the bottom fabric layer. Guide but do not restrict the ruffle fabric, and let the needles gather up the ruffle as they will. The selvage edge of the fabric became the hem for the ruffles on this jacket. Any hemming necessary for the ruffle should be done before needle felting it in place. Ruffles cut on the bias will gather up more than those cut on the straight grain, but both versions are very pretty!

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A Pillow Fit for a Princess!

A silk chiffon ruffle and tiny pearl beads add extra sweetness to this girly pillow. Different shades of pink silk chiffon, white burnout silk velvet and a very light weight silk crepe were needle felted together to make the fabric for this project. Petite rose designs from the Spring Button Covers design set and a tiny butterfly from the Lightly Lacy collection were embroidered on the pillow for added interest.

The ruffle on this pillow was attached as one would normally attach a ruffle to a pillow. The big difference is that instead of sewing a gathering row of stitching on the ruffle material, the ruffle was “gathered” by the needle felting needles directly onto the selvage edge of the pillow. To create this type of ruffle, place the ruffle material and pillow fabric right sides together, selvage edges aligned. Needle felt along the selvage edges, keeping a bit of tension on the bottom fabric layer as you go. Guide—but do not restrict—the ruffle fabric, letting the needles gather up the ruffle as they will. Place the pillow backing over the ruffled pillow top, tucking the ruffle down inside the two layers of fabric, and stitch around the outside perimeter. The seam allowance you use should cover the path the needle felting needles made while gathering the ruffle. Check to see what the seam allowance will need to be before sewing on the pillow back. Unless the ruffle has been cut on the bias, you will need to hem it before needle felting it to the pillow top. The tiny pearl beads on this pillow were sewn on by hand after the pillow was constructed.

Resources: www.babylock.com Embellisher, needle-felting machine www.abitofstitch.com Machine embroidery Designs: Light & Lacy collection; Little Bird Scrolls; Spring Button Covers; Flower Brooches; Isabella Designs www.hermajestymargo.com Needle felting fibers and other fun stuff about needle felting www.denverfabrics.com Silk fabrics www.thaisilks.com Silk fabrics