and then we set it on fire... well really we melted it... Lutradur

And then we set it on fire… well maybe not but playing with heat tools…

This title is what attracted me to read this blog in the first place. It is a cool title.

Today is the day we look at heating Lutradur.

Tools needed a heat gun like the type used in embossing ink for stamping, a soldering iron or a tool like the Creative Hollow heat tool. I have a “Martha Stewart” heat tool. (It was the right price)

++++Do not use a heat gun like the type to strip paint. This is not safe and too strong of a heat.

Safety notes:

-Lutradur is a polyester product so use your heat tools in a well-ventilated area. To be safer use a mask or respirator designed for fumes.

-Have tools on hand like a skewer, awl, tweezers, or other tool to hold the Lutradur in place.

-Use the tools on a heat protected area. An ironing board, glass pane, cookie sheet. Do not do on top of your table unprotected.

-Know where your fire extinguisher is (preferable close by) or a pan of water beside you.

-Use your Teflon ironing sheet. Use for protection of your surface or as a shield.

Before you see my examples let’s take a moment to have some hints from Leslie Riley www.leslieriley.com

This is a picture Leslie sent me to show how she has used heat tools to cut Lutradur. See her heat tool in the right upper corner of the picture?

Hints from Leslie….

Jo: If you could name just one technique as your favourite what would it be? And why? 

Leslie: I still love what attracted me initially, burning organic edges. I love the magic and power behind taking the heat tool to the edge of a piece of Lutradur.

Jo:  The blog that we are writing for is …and then we set it on fire… what is your best story on using a heat tool or soldering tool and having it burn a bit too much. Could you use your “mistake” and turn it into something interesting?

Leslie: In my early days of transferring images, I read that applying a solvent to a magazine image of those early color copies and then heating it would create a good color transfer. So I iron the paper that I had painted with solvent. Big mistake. Solvents are combustible. A small fire ensured on my ironing board. Fortunately I was able to put it out quickly.

                                       

Other than that, the only other heat tool story is placing my hot tool onto a plastic table while teaching and burning/melting a hole into the table. Obviously I stress proper use and resting places for your heat tool. A tall heavy empty jar is a great place to put a hot tool while you are working.

Now into heating. We have our area set up so we are safe….

Lutradur will melt to nothing if you apply to much heat to it. Like anything else you need to practice with the tools you have to get effects that you want. If you heat an area to hot you may burn more than you expect. But this can be a creative opportunity or as I like to say a creative design change.

First we will use the Stamping Embossing Gun to “Lace” our Lutradur.

When you use the heat gun let it warm up first. If you put it over your Lutradur when your first turn it on you will not get the heat the same as when you have it on for a minute. Start out moving the heat gun over the area you want to “lace”. (Leslie calls this technique lacing) 

The farther away from the surface the slower the Lutradur will melt. If you move the heat gun closer to the fabric the rate of melting will increase. So if you are new to heating keep the gun higher. Also the rate you move the gun around the surface will also slow the rate of melting. If you want greater lacing as opposed to melted holes than move the gun around in small circles and hold it higher above the fabric.

This is a skill that is easy to do but hard to control.

Let’s look at some pieces I have laced.

This is the piece of black Lutradur that I used the Golden Glass bead medium through a stencil. I decided I wanted to create a ethereal city … and I might achieve this with lacing.

I decide to quit lacing when I got to this point.

This piece

Was stamped then laced…

Sometimes the material you colour with will act as a resist to melting… or at least the resist area won’t melt as quickly. Acrylic paint can act as a resist but also the bead gel medium did so in the above picture.

My friend and fellow Fabrigo Robynne wanted to try to do lacing. So we pulled out the heat gun and started running it. We used my Teflon sheet to shield areas she didn’t want to get to much heat on. She wanted to burn the edges of the Lutradur but had already sew it to her piece.

Robynne Cole  SAQA  and Fabrigos. Portion of a work in progress

The hole is an “oops…” but it has caused her to re think the piece and add a 3 d embellishment to cover over some of the hole.

Robynne Cole  SAQA  and Fabrigos. Portion of a work in progress

In another part of her piece the shielding worked and the edges of the Lutradur was given the slight organic laced look she was going for as opposed to a crisp even cut edge.

I love this look!

My friend Karen from Fabrigos also make a picture from Lutradur. She used my ship picture, free motion stitching and used lacing to get a really amazing look. I can only show you a peek of it now.

Lutradur stitched onto fabric and laced. Karen Sirianni SAQA and Fabrigos work in progress.

To use the soldering iron or the creative heat tool…

Some hints of caution…

- make sure you have a place for your soldering iron to rest when not in use. If the tool does not have a reliable stand (like mine) use Leslie’s tip and use an old glass jar. Ineke Berlyn in her DVD with colouricious.com on Lutradur use a clay garden pot with a hole in the bottom. The pot is upside down and she puts the tool into the hole. I am sure there are more great suggestions out there. Just make sure the tool is stable when you do not have it in your hand.

-My tool also has to be completely cool to change tips. Don’t touch the hot tips!

So with your heat proof surface ready try some lacing with your soldering iron/heat tool.

I use my portable ironing board with my glass plate on top. I want to also try this with a cookie sheet sometime.

These are the tips that come with my Martha Stewart Heat Tool. I choose to use the one in the front of the picture. I tried to take pictures of me actually doing the work but I could do the camera and the heat tool. I am sure there is a way.

When the tool was hot enough ( a few minutes at best) I took my tweezers and held on to the lutradur and put the tip to where I wanted to have the Lutradur melt. I wanted to accent the white spaces that were left in the stamping.

Below I did a wavy line to take off a piece of the lutradur that was not coloured.

Here is the piece below all finished. I can imagine it in apiece with leaves, or part of a post card or other card…. Somehting in my box of tricks to use when inspiration hits.

In the picture above I traced out leaves form mylar templates. I made the templates my self from taking leaves from my garden. I scanned the real leaves into my  computer. I printed the page out and traced images. In some cases I enlarged or shrunk the size of leaf so I could have multiple sizes. I use the templates when I cut out leaves from fabric for 3 d  stitched leaves in my pieces.

Below is  the traced leaves. I used a sharpie pen and free handed leaf veins.

Here is a picture of the finished leaf. Very translucent. Reminiscent of the broken down leaves of late fall.

This is a leaf that I made from the molding paste and a stencil. I melted some of the leaf veins and used scissors to cut around the leaf. On the right back ground this will provides great texture and dimension to the piece.

Using the embossing heat tool gives you wonderful looks. The soldering iron/heat tool gives you a more subtle effect and more control over your melting.  So far I have not set anything on fire. But melting things is addictive!

I have been really enjoying our time together.

I still have many more things I would like to show you. If I don’t get it all posted this week I will continue on my own blog… monitoring my experiments with all the wonderful techniques out there. I am really thankful for all the artists who have shared with me. And the graciousness of them to let me show their work.

I hope you have enjoyed this month as much as I have… a few more technique’s to go but there is lots more in Leslie's book and the other books an DVD’s that are out there. People continue to amaze me at what they come up with.

Jo

http://thesewinggeek.blogspot.ca

Remember to win an e copy of Leslie Riley’s book from C &T publishing. Comment on this blog post or any post from this series of Lurtadur posts.

And as a Bonus Prize of Lutradur samples and goodies from me do one of three things.

·        Having a tip that you have shared on the days topic

·        Tell me you have tried something as a result of this month’s post tips and what it was

·        If you have gone to my blog and become a follower.

(I don't want to coherence any one in becoming a follower of my blog so you can skip that one if you want to .... no pressure.)

Cool Hot Stuff

What can you do with burnt Tyvek?  Check out his gorgeous quilt:  http://eiloren.blogspot.com/2009/10/end-of-beauty.html

Neroli Henderson (her website is here) also has a tutorial for burning Tyvek leaves: http://web.me.com/eiloren/eiloren/Tutorials/Entries/2008/3/7_Tyvek_-_Leaf_tutorial_2.html

And here is her burned quilt: http://eiloren.blogspot.com/2010/05/burning-quilt-textile-art-with-heat-gun.html

While you're there check out the rest of her blog -- there are artist interviews and all kinds of cool hot stuff.  She uses heat on lots of different stuff and includes information on the materials she has used.

More With the Heat Gun and Lutradur

I used leaf stamps and Jacquard Lumiere paint on the heavier lutradur.  I let it dry, then I cut them out and blasted them with the heat gun set on HIGH.

I straightened them out while they were still hot (yes, I have burnt fingertips to prove it.)  I'm not crazy about these.  I will probably get out the paints and add a layer of color.

 These are the lighter weight of lutradur.  I discovered that they look much nicer with the heat gun set at the lower setting and some extra patience.  The "leaf" on the upper right was done on high, with the other two on low.  It took a bit longer, but the result is more what I was hoping for -- a kind of lacy result.

Again, I used the lower heat setting; but a much nicer result, I think.  A little more heat and a little more patience would benefit this one.

And because it's Halloween, I just had to use the spider web stamp.  I used the high setting on the heat gun and it's almost dissolved.  But still spooky, if you're into that...

Using Heat to Add Texture to Fabric--Quilter Beth

I have been collecting fabrics of "unknown origin" to use in art quilt projects for quite some time. Many of them were purchased with "setting them on fire" in mind, so this month's technique is right up my alley! What I wanted to do today was get an idea how the fabric reacted to the heat so I could see if I might want to experiment further with it.

I used a heat gun to see how each fabric was changed by the heat. All of the fabrics (except one my friend brought along) contained polyester. I have a book called "Raising the Surface with Machine Embroidery" by Maggie Grey that contained a lot of ideas about how to manipulate fabric with heat.

Before I start, let me be clear that if you choose to heat fabric in any way, do it outside. The fumes are harmful to your health! I began the afternoon (outside in my garage) with a suggestion from the book--a chiffon sandwich. I made a sandwich consisting of two pieces of gray polyester chiffon, foil, and fusible web. (I used Heat and Bond Light since that is what I had on hand.) I covered my ironing board with parchment paper and put one of the chiffon pieces on top. I then pressed the fusible webbing onto that piece. I removed the paper backing from the fusible; and while it was still warm, I put some foil on it (shiny side up). I rubbed the foil with the edge of a blunt knife till I had as much color as I wanted, removed the clear top sheet of the foil, and ironed the other piece of chiffon on top of the fusible. (I covered the chiffon with parchment paper before ironing.) This is what that looked like. (The picture turned out darker than the actual fabric.)

Then, as was suggested in the book, I put the sandwich over a piece of velvet, covered with parchment paper, and pressed down firmly. I zapped it with a heat gun after that. I didn't heat it a lot. (I may try that later.) The chiffon sandwich is attached to the velvet.

Next, I spent time zapping different fabrics with my heat gun. Some turned out great; others were dismal failures. This first fabric is a gray polyester that used to be a bed skirt. I think it is my favorite of the day.

 

This is the original fabric.

I love the really bubbly effect.

These two pictures are the same fabric--top picture is the front of the fabric; bottom picture is the back of the fabric. This fabric turned out very lacy and holey.

In the picture above, I added ink to part of a dryer sheet before I heated it. I wasn't impressed (actually the picture looks BETTER than the original if you can believe that.)

The original fabric is on the left. I thought this would be much cooler; but when I used the heat gun all that happened was that it burned. Again, the picture actually looks better than it does in person.

The original fabric is on the left. The only thing that happened to this fabric when I heated it was that it crinkled a little and sort of shredded.

This is my experiment with Tyvek. I really like the way it crinkled and bubbled. The picture below shows it after I rubbed some Pearl Ex powders onto it.

I tried heating red acrylic felt.

I'm thinking this might have gone better if I had stitched on the felt first (which the book suggested).

This is a strip of poly satin. It crinkled nicely. Then we added some fusible web and foil color to it.

 The picture above shows what happens when you make a silk sandwich (rather than a polyester chiffon sandwich) and heat it. It doesn't shrink or bubble or get holey. We added foil cut outs to it. When this was held up to the light, it was semi-transparent.

This white polyester fabric is the part of a bed skirt that goes under the mattress. I liked how it crinkled.

I can really see how some of these fabrics could make an interesting addition to an art quilt. Stitching, beading, painting, etc. could also enhance the look. Now, to figure out how to use these...