Devices of Fabric Torture

Why not?

I love to work with synthetic and old recycled fabrics - often a lot of these fabrics come from clothes made with manmade fibres.

Synthetic fabric can be pretty ugly and cheap-looking on its own - particularly that tacky sequinned stuff - but once it's been distressed, it changes. It becomes something beautiful.

Below you can see some of my very early samples of distressed fabrics. These were melted and burned with naked flames and soldering irons.

Melting can let off some really nasty fumes so it's adviseable to work in a well ventilated area - or outside. I really wouldn't advise using a naked flame, but if you do remember to have some way of extinguishing burning fabrics to hand!

Melting, and indeed distressing fabrics in other ways, can be a great way to get a lace-like effect in your textiles pieces. Note when I say "lace-like effect" I mean "Making holes"!

In the image opposite, the textiles piece was layered with natural fabric that already had holes in it. When the fabric was heated the synthetic fabric behind the holes melted away but the natural fibres remained.

Below you can see where the stitches are acting as borders for the melting.

These two images are some of my oldest pieces produced with a hot air gun.

Notice how the heat has taken away the top layer and reveals the colours beneath?

This is a great way to make a layered "collaged" piece without having to worry about precisely appliqueing every piece of fabric in place.

I used a hot air gun on these pieces but soldering irons and cheese graters can be used in the same way to create "cool" effects.

(The bobbly bits on the textiles piece opposite are splodges of puff binder that were then heated to create this popcorn effect).

So, you see, there are great reasons for distressing fabrics:

Adding textures

Making holes in fabrics which gives you an opportunity for adding a new texture beneath

Aging textiles to make them look antique

To be perfectly honest, I haven't got my hot air gun out for a good melting in a long time but it still remains one of my favourite tools for distressing fabrics.

Hot aiur can be great for:

Melting away a thin top layer of synthetic fabric to reveal the fabrics underneath

Sealing the edges of fraying synthetic fabric

Making holes in your textiles piece.

In the image opposite you may just be able to pick out the fragments of melted yellow organza which used to be the top layer of this textiles piece.

The image is a detail of the piece below. I used strips of organza selvedge to look like folds in the ruff and blasted them with hot air to make them look a little less uniform.

Using a cheese grater is my new favourite way to distress fabrics.

It works particularly well with layered fabrics that have been loosely stitched together.

It's best to use the small homes (the ones for lemon zest) and all you need to do is drag the grater over the cloth.

As the textiles pieces I make are generally quite thick I can happily grate the textiles whilst holding my hand behind the piece to make the action easier.

The images opposite and below show a piece of layered, sewn textiles that was first melted and then grated.

The grating works really well with melted crusty fabrics.

Often melting will heave really hard pieces of fabric around the holes - the grater grips on to these and pulls them away, leaving loose threads and softening the piece whilst still revealing the beautiful colours.

In the image below you can see how you can work into the top of grated fabrics.

Here I've worked knots into the texture.

If you feel that you've gone too far with any of these processes you can always fix theings.

Often threads will come loose from a grated piece of fabric - you can always fix this with a little machine or hand embroidery. Or you could even layer a piece of sheer fabric over the top to hold all the loose threads in place.

Opposite: This is a close-up on the grated piece after a little more melting.

Melting the grated piece can also make sure that some of the looser fibres will adhere to the background, or at least shrivel up and create an interesting effect.

I haven't used soldering for years but I'd love to give it a go again.

I love the idea of being able to create a melted pattern onto fabrics - there's a great potential to make intricate lace-like patterns in your fabric by making a series of holes.

Again, this is another process where harmful vapours can be released, so make sure you work in a well-ventilated area and wear a face mask.

In the sample opposite I've used a soldering iron on synthetic felt - this works really well and can be very effective - especially if you're melting through several layers of felt.

Below I've shown what effects you can achieve by melting around the outside of manmade fabrics.

By the way, if you're using a soldering iron to melt fabrics you probably won't be able to use it for electronics afterwards - fabrics tend to leave burnt plastic behind that can be difficult to clean off.

The image below is a detail of the bottom of the dress belonging to the lady shown opposite.

I've melted some felt with a soldering iron, cut the felt into squares and then layered those squares up in the textiles piece.

The squares were then defined by stitching around them.

This piece was also melted with a hot air gun - so you can see it can be fun to use several tools on one textiles piece. Just be careful not to melt the felt too much with the hot air or you'll ruin the soldered effect!

I was fairly random about the hole placement on these pieces of felt, but you can also use the soldering iron to make patterns.