Melt It! - Part 2

This is part 2 of melt it. For part 1 click here.

Today I took my melted organza circles and attached them to my melted background, again all with a soldering iron, no stitches. Here's how:

First lay out the pieces in a pleasing arrangement. There's no need to pin because they are quite rough and sort of grip together even in windy Perth.

To attach a piece it's really easy, just tap them together with the soldering iron, make sure to leave it on long enough that is melts slightly through the top piece into the background beneath. Do this all around each piece, it gives a nice textured edge too.

One all the motifs are on it's time to neaten the edges. No measuring or spending ages hand sewing on bindings. Just cut right through all the layers using the ruler to push them together. Go slowly as it takes a while to melt right through so much fabric.

It can be tricky to get the corners square. Luckily my cutting mat has a grid marked on it.

The finished piece is at the top of the page.

I backed my circles with gold sheer fabric but you can make your own interesting stripy fabrics using the soldering iron.

Lay 2 pieces of organza on top of each other on the glass mat, You can overlap them fully, I just kept them a little misaligned so you could see the 2 layers in the photo.

Press down on the ruler so they make good contact and then run the soldering iron down the ruler. This not only cuts them but fuses them at the same time.

Open out and you have a melted seam! These are quite delicate and can be ripped apart easily if you don't like it. You can't really see the seam on the front and it is only tiny on the back.

Take this fused piece and fuse another on top. Keep going until you have a stripy fabric.

You don't have have to keep the lines parallel.

You can add felt strips the same way.

I also used up some of my edging cut off from the main piece.

You can use the fabrics to cover holes in the work. I cut a wonky heart hole from the scarp I had left over. Just attach the stripy fabric to the back with a few taps of the soldering iron.

Then turn it to the front and cut out the shape through all the layers.

I'm going to experiment with sewing on and between the shapes next.