Sublime Sunday

Today’s topic was supposed to be silk cocoons and carrier rods.  And a few weeks ago, I ordered some so they would be ready when we reached this technique.  I carefully put them in a safe place.  Can you see where this is going?  Yup!  I can’t find them!!!

So, rather than waste time looking, I decided to skip ahead.  Today, I made Fabric Beads!

There are a couple of ways to make fabric beads.  One way is to use glue and simply wrap different widths of fabric.

That’s how I made the bead on the left.  I added beads and some glitter, so that was pretty simple.

The other way is to use different synthetics and plastic fibers and use a heat gun to fuse them together.  The other three beads above were made using that method.  I used chiffon, some angelina, some Tyvek, and some rayon thread.  The different fibers react differently to heat and you get some pretty cool shapes.

Both of these are heated and fused.  The top one has a regular cotton fabric as the base and is tied with a combination of yarns.  The yarns melted at different rates and made a pretty cool “ornament” on the bead.  The other bead has some crinkled chiffon as the base and the ends did an interesting curl and twist.

This one is cotton fabric strips rolled up.  I laid a bead of glue around the middle there and rolled it in microbeads and glitter.  I like how the green fabric is starting to fray, too.  That could be another way to go when making fabric beads. 

Every once in awhile I will see an article on making beads – from fabric, yarns, smaller beads, etc.  Today’s play time really just touched the surface.  Fun stuff!

Now, if I could just find those silk rods!  They will turn up some day.  When they do, I’ll go back to that page in the book.  I promise!