Stitching felt as yardage

[lyn]

Machine stitching into felt is wonderful because the stitching distorts the felt to give interesting results.

But this distortion is a nuisance if you're making felt to make 'yardage' to then cut and sew into items such as purses, ipad cases etc
To prevent distortion, the felt needs to be backed with a thin non-stretch fabric. Double-sided fusible webbing is brilliant for joining felt and fabric together, but of course you have to apply the heat from the thin fabric side because wool is such a good insulator!

Cutting and stitching is then easy because the fabric makes the felt 'behave'. You also have a lined item with no extra effort!

This is a photo of some edge stitching (just zig-zag) that I did on backed felt and the resulting piece laid flat as I wanted it to (I made a cafetiere wrap from the yardage).

The stitching may not look much like zig-zag because I ran the right-hand edge under the presser foot slightly to the left of the needle as it passed down through to connect with the bobbin.

To show the distortion of edge stitching on unbacked felt, there's a photo on our blog (7th June 2009). The result is a lovely wavy edge and we got the best results by stitching the edge over twice. Sorry I had to refer to the photo in the blog, but I can't work out how to post two photos - can anyone help with this?

[zed]

This one, Lyn?

I think you can only upload one image at a time, from the computer.
To add from a blog, right click, get the URL from Properties, then paste the link, highlight and click the iamge button to get the [ img ] codes around it

The sewing is great, by the way

[Shepherdess]

cool, so if I didn't want it lined then I could just use a soluble stableizer do you think?

[lyn]

Thank you Zed - yes, that's the example I meant. And now I know how to use the image button - I couldn't understand why I just got appear in the text, so thanks for that too.

Ann - I've only ever used the soluble stabiliser for crazy felt or organza + machine stitch bowls etc, so I don't know how it would perform in place of the thin fabric permanently in place.
We use non-soluble stabiliser as a backing when we're stitching onto pictures (but we don't bond it in place - it's 'free') and that seems to hold things in place ok.

More experiments in order?

[pamd]

Interesting. Thanks, Lyn.

[MTRuth]

Thanks Lyn, this is a really good idea. More experiments are definitely in order!