January's Tart Kit: Fabric Textures

Sue Anne made this piece with a textured fabric as the background to the machine embroidered flowers. The folds and crinkles add a slight dimension to the surface behind the flowers.

This month the lesson covers four methods of creating texture to your fabric which will give your piece more tactile and visual appeal. The manipulated fabric can by your focal point or used for a more subtle background.

To pucker your fabric, you will layer a piece of nonshrinking fabric over the piece of diaper flannel. Stitch as desired and wash in hot water to shrink the flannel. This will cause the top fabric to pucker.

To bubble fabric: Lay a wet piece fabric like velveteen over a grid and push the fabric through the squares. You will start in the center and work out to the edges. The finished piece will be about half as large as the original fabric. While it is still wet, iron a piece of fusible interfacing to the back side and let dry. Carefully pull the finished bubbled fabric out of the grid.





Crinkling fabric: Wet a piece of fabric and squeeze out the excess moisture. Gather the fabric into folds and begin twisting until the fabric begins to curl up on itself. Keep twisting until it has become a ball. Push the fabric ball into the toe of a knee high nylon and dry thoroughly. When dry, remove the fabric and lay out. Determine the amount of crinkle you want and adhere a piece of interfacing to the back side.

Scrunching the fabric: Cut a piece of fusible interfacing and lay the fusible side up. Place a larger piece of fabric wrong side down and scrunch up the top fabric until it is roughly the same size as the interfacing. Lightly iron from the front. Turn over and finish pressing fully. Embroider with decorative threads.