Fusing Questions and Answers

I can always tell when PBS has aired our Art of Quilting program because my mailbox fills up with pertinent questions.

One can fuse fabric onto a base fabric, as in fused appliqué or just fuse two pieces together by overlapping the edges. In order to make a 'seam' in this way, one must have a pressing base of the release paper from the Wonder-Under, or a teflon pressing sheet. When neither is available, we have also used parchment paper with good results.

Fuse the fabric using a hot iron and a swift continuous movement, paying extra attention to the edges of the paper, making sure to fuse them. LET THE FABRIC COOL BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE THE RELEASE PAPER. Once cool, remove the paper and cut the fabric with a scissor or rotary cutter. Because the paper is already removed, the edges are not stressed and will not fray. This is especially true if you are using a tightly woven fabric. Looser weaves might fray if handled a lot.

Essentially, one fused piece of fabric must touch the surface of the next piece of fused fabric. Press lightly with a hot iron and let cool. Then peel both pieces off the fusing surface and voila, a fused seam!

That's it. That's all there is to fused seaming, or fused appliqué.

WE in the CSOF (Chicago School of Fusing) use only hand dyed fabrics in our work because these fabrics stay fused best, and the raw edges show only the color of the fabric, not any printing associated with commercially printed fabrics. With prints, only the surface has the color, and there is a wrong side, so while one can fuse them, one must deal with the unattractive edges. Secondly hand dyed fabric inherently has no factory applied coatings which interfere with permanent fusing.

Any design that can be imagined can be accomplished using these construction techniques. We use fusing for quilts for the wall, of course, and do not recommend fusing bed quilts that will be washed unless all edges are finished and secured by quilting.

There was a question about the aging of fused fabrics: Here's the skinny on longevity of fusing. I have OLD fused art quilts, which are doing just fine. And should something release from the surface, momentarily, a hot iron will remedy the situation. Discoloration? Not a bit.

On the other hand, the functional quilts I made in the beginning of my quilting odyssey, which have been used and loved, and were hand and machine pieced and quilted, have shown some age, some splitting of seams and some wear. Nothing is permanent and if artwork is handled with common sense, it will last and last.

Of course we could all use polyester and never have a fear of anything deteriorating.

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Yesterday I mentioned that I would be shopping online for  a fancy arty sprinkler but what I found did not seem durable enough for more than one season. Dave found the perfect thing to replicate rain, on Ebay. Two for $30 and free shipping. Here’s the link.

Woowoo!

It rained all night and now I have a day off in the studio. Double woowoo!