Fusing 101

I absolutely love a dramatic late afternoon sky through the bare winter trees!  

It's so easy to see and appreciate the complexity of the trees in the winter!  This is the time of year the branches are the star!

Remember my blue denim circles?  

I cut them into two pieces...and mounted them on a piece of 4 x 4 watercolor paper so will fit nicely into a little black frame.

I think I love the precious little scraps as much as the bigger pieces.

I'll figure out something to do with these.

Here is one of the current watercolor projects I'm working on as I continue practicing blooms and bleeds. I used the same floral stencil from before but I sized it down. I painted a very light value background with the plan to overlay fused fabric stems and flowers on top...letting them be the star.

But I found that I didn't leave enough white space...so it was going to be too busy go use my initial plan. I'm going to have to be very strategic about how and where I place just a few fabric flowers....o far there are two. Stay tuned.

Because my recent Your Joyful Puttering offering is An Ounce of Fusing Fun....I thought I would do a series of posts on the very basics of fusing.  I will tuck these little lessons at the end of my posts for a few days and will label them "fusing 101" so they can easily be referenced from the label menu along the side of my blog. 

Fusing lesson #1...for those who are interested:

For all of my fusing projects I use Pellon 805 Wonder-Under....it's available at any fabric store or online. It comes in a small roll or by the bolt. I use it for art...on quilts and paper....so the end result doesn't go in the wash.  If you are going to wash something I would reinforce it with stitching.  Even with that...you might get some fraying....which could be desirable.

There is fusible webbing (the glue) on one side of the Wonder-Under...and release paper on the other.

With a hot dry iron I iron the webbing onto the fabric with the GLUE SIDE DOWN!  The heat activates the glue and transfers it to the fabric.  I iron it from both sides...for 10 to 15 seconds.  If its doesn't stick...you can iron it again.  

Once it has cooled, I trim the extra fabric off on three of the edges before I take the paper off. Once I peel the paper off...I trim that 4th edge.  It's just easier to grab the corner of paper this way.

  

Why trim? because I want to be sure there is fusible in every inch and every edge of the fabric. I keep this pre-fused fabric separate from my other fabric.

Why take the paper off?  The fabric is easier to store, and you can always fuse the paper back on if you want to draw a design...more on that later.  And the larger pieces of release paper come in handy for so many things.  I save EVERY SINGLE PIECE of release paper because it's so useful for creating motifs, as a pressing cloth, and for protecting surfaces.  Stay tuned for lesson #2.