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Renewing my love of Fiber Etch!
By Serena Smith | February 28, 2009
Fiber Etch – have you ever used this etching gel? I have several times and taught a couple of classes using it several years ago, but it’s been a while since I’ve picked up my bottle. If you’ve never heard of it, it is a gel that etched out plant fiber fabrics such as cotton, linen and rayon. It will not etch polyester, wool or silk, so you can create designs by using different fabrics and etching whatever design or motif you want.
www.embroideryonline.com Design NZ369Basically what I’ve done with it is cutwork like the embroidery design above. I’ve stitched an open cutwork design with polyester thread on a rayon fabric, applied the fiber etch to the area of fabric inside the stitching, heated it with an iron and the fabric inside the stitching darkens and just falls out.
If you’ve ever done cutwork, usually you stitch the design and then take a little itty bitty pair of scissors and cut out the fabric inside. What a headache! It’s tough to cut out the fabric without clipping the threads plus getting a smooth clean finish without those little thread ends sticking out. Just look at the tulip and imagine trying to cut out all the fabric without snipping the threads?!?!
When using the Fiber Etch, the fabric just falls out inside and there is a smooth clean finish on the edge of the thread. It’s great to use and I’ve gotten out of the habit of using it, so this was a good reminder to get it out and create something with it.
What was neat was seeing how Dana (Dana Marie Designs) used the Fiber Etch here at the Sew Expo. She does use it for cutwork with embroidery, but she also showed some pieces using silk/rayon velvet. Trace a pattern such as a simple outlined leaf on the fabric. Just run a line of Fiber Etch following the pattern. Heat it and brush away the fibers. The rayon pile of velvet is etched away and the silk background remains. Just too neat!!!
I actually have some silk chiffon that I was planning on making a skirt out of at some point and doing cutwork around the edge of the hem, but I may dig around in my stash and see if I have a plant fiber fabric that I can do the same thing and use the Fiber Etch. I’m sure I have something!
The great thing with using the Fiber Etch is that you can etch out the top fabric and put another fabric behind it to show through as a different color. Make a very easy project look like it took hours to do! :)
There’s some other projects swirling around in my head in which I could use the Fiber Etch and create some neat things, so I just need to get that bottle out in my line of sight and make a note to do something.
Topics: Cutting Tips, Product Reviews, Project Ideas, Sewing & Quilting Shows | 1 Comment »
March 16th, 2009 at 5:11 am
I love the idea of fiber etching. That looks like a fantastic product to have. Thanks for the heads up on this.