margaret-cooter: Heat transfer processes

We did foiling and flocking, both on what we'd produced the previous day and on new bits of fabric.

We started by making stencils (cut into newsprint) for screen printing the foil glue, and also used brushes etc for making other marks with the glue. I like the "moons"near the bottom, printed with a bit of round sponge -

The criss-cross marks worked better on a sheer fabric coloured yesterday, with less glue on the spatula used to make them -

Foiling is pressed for 15-20 seconds at 160 degrees (more or less). Flocking - for which there is a sort of transfer paper - uses a different glue and spends 30 seconds in the press at 180 degrees. Here are Dawn's samples of both techniques -

Left top, foiling (with "skeleton" of foil for re-use later); left bottom, flocking;
centre, flocking through stencil over a sublimation print;
right, foiling through stencil over the "negative" of the print (using the dye paper)

I did do some flocking, on a bit of fabric from the scrap bin. It feels very dense and much smoother than velvet - and shows what a simple brush stroke can do -

The flock paper can be re-used, but won't be as solid as fresh flock paper.

Strangest object of the day - this scrap of fake fur became solid and plasticky with the foil added. Now if it was real wool (fleece or roving) and gold leaf, that would be something else! -

Moving swiftly on, I got to work on some gathered cloth, found recently -

As found

Foiled - pewter on the fabric, gold on the strings

I'm in the process of loosening the gathers just a little, to separate the solid mass of the foil, and then will seep colour into the fabric from underneath.

Looser foiling, less of it too -

This is a double layer, so something different can be done on the back - I might try printing the circles with the fabric almost stretched out. Just to see what happens. Does it need colour?

I foiled over some thick stitches, on wool, but forgot to take a photo. That was inspired by this detail of Alison Willoughby's "Skirt 41", one of the slides Dawn showed us -