Some familiar designs and solid pieces to show off the patterning

A few weeks ago, during Week 92: Laser Cut Appliques to be exact, I came across the intriguing fact on the Heat N Bond website that it works to adhere fabric to wood.  Cue wheels spinning!

All the fun fabrics

Most of my jewelry design is done in silhouette, without  a lot of detail other than in the outline.  This really allows the materials to shine, but every once in awhile it’s fun to jazz it up with a surface, like we did with the alcohol inks way back in Week 13.  I picked out a few favorites from my every-growing stash of fabric, focusing on ones with smaller designs or close patches of color to work with small or intricate designs.

Neatly attached to to wood with Ultra Heat N Bond

Attaching the fabric with Heat and Bond was really easy – all you need is an iron.  (If you’ve neverworked with it before, check out the video from Heat n Bond’s website.) I ironed it to 3mm bamboo, probably my favorite material of all time.

Check out those edges! Nice, neat and smooth.

Cutting was simple – we didn’t even adjust the settings from bare wood.  The edges were tidy, and only one piece out of the whole lot had any fray.  One thing I would have done differently, though, is I should have taped the fabric side.  On the lighter fabric, a little bit of soot did make it a little dingy.

Finished pieces next to the original fabric. There was a little bit of soot transfer, but this would have probably been alleviated by taping the fabric side before cutting.  On the piece to the right, you can see the extent of the fray – one loose thread.

Stress Test!

Lightly engraved fabric.

The adhesion was pretty solid, but not infallible – the fabric can come off, but it took some pretty intense scraping with pliers to get up the corner.

We also did a quick test on engraved fabric – I would probably try to engrave deeper to get through the fabric next time.

The results are fun, and applicable in so many ways.  Think about how fun it would be to make fabric covered tangrams, quilt blocks,  names for a kids room, or unique jewelry.

Finished Jewelry