Try It Out Tuesday : Lace Flowers.

I showed you how to make Lutradur Lace in a previous post.  I made a little piece recently using florists wrap, just to see how it worked (very nicely), but it wasn't really big enough to do anything with.  So I thought I'd make a flower as an embellishment for a hat (possibly).

Take your piece of lace, and fold it in half.

Pick it up in both hands, one on either side of the lace scrap, with the fold at the bottom.  Gently push the sides together, as if you were trying to make a tuck or a pleat in the centre, and then play with the resulting shape until you something that looks flower like.

I thought this was quite sparse, so I added a smaller, second piece of lutradur lace around the flower shape, to flesh it out a bit. 

When I had a shape I liked (I think it's a sort of freestyle frilly carnation...).  I took a secure grip of the bottom with the fingers of one hand, and tied it together with a piece of cord.  If you wanted to make a proper stem for it, use wire instead of cord, and tape the wire, using florists tape. 

And here's the end result...

I think it's quite nice... why not try it out?  It took me about ten minutes to make, and would look good on a headband or hat, or, for that matter, an embroidery...

Tip Of The Week : More Lutradur Lace

If you have tried out the Lutradur lace, and feel it's altogether too flimsy for your liking, try folding the Lutradur in half before you stitch it, or even add a third layer.  That will make it a bit more substantial, and, of course, there will be less distortion when you stitch into it.  Or you could try moving up a weight, from 30 to 70, for instance. Or both!  The piece shown here was made with two layers of Lutradur 30, and whilst the difference isn't really visible, I can certainly feel it.

Try It Out Thursday : Using Lutradur Lace

Okay, it's my birthday today, and I'm cheating slightly... I thought I would give you some eye candy.  I showed you how to make lutradur lace here; now I'm showing you what I did with that little piece of lace.  As you can see, it's attached to a fascinator base, and I've added some feathers and a sequinned motif.  I think it's fun!  The base is black, which I thought made it slightly more sophisticated than either red or white.  I think this one is finished, but you never know with these things... sometimes things get added... I'm tempted to try to find a tiny bird to perch on it!

The lace was attached using tiny hand stitches.  Because the sinamay base is curved, I carefully stitched around it, then made a dart of sorts of the excess material and trimmed it back.  I then added a few stitches to the raw ends, and covered all of those workings with the feathers and motif.  These are glued down, making the joint even more secure.

Hope you enjoyed the eye candy!  What will you use your lutradur lace for?

Try It Out Tuesday : Lutradur Lace

If you have used water soluble embroidery paper or fabric, you have probably made needle lace to embellish a piece of work.  If you take a scrap of any weight of Lutradur (except, perhaps XL; I haven't tried it, but I don't think it's worth it...), and free motion stitch into it, in interlapping circles (or in my case, rough approximations of circles).  My preferred weight for this is Lutradur 30.  As you stitch into the cloth, you will find that it distorts and puckers readily.  That's not a problem, as you will be burning out most of the cloth anyway. 

You can use this technique on either plain white or coloured fabric; here, I've used transfer dyed Lutradur and a variegated thread.  The photographs have been taken over  a brown envelope, just to let you see the holes.  You might remember that I used this technique to make a flower here.  Why not try it with some scrap, and see how you get on?  I prefer it to 'lace' made with water soluble materials, as it is stronger, and, if you don't burn out all of the fabric, you get the remains of the cloth adding colour as well as strength.