Creative Beading

Fabric Collage And Embellishment

Are you looking for a broad range of colour-coordinated embroidery and felting products for fabric collage? Colour Streams has 50 hand-dyed colours in a range of silk threads, silk ribbon, pure wool craft felt, silk velvet, silk Habatai, silk organza and silk crinkle chiffom hand printed fabrics that give the creator both textural and colour play, which is perfect for fabric collage. Fabric collage, needle felting or traditional felting can be illuminated by incorporating some of the new variety of shiny silk fabrics. To get you started, Colour Streams has made an organized ‘Embellishment Stash Pack’, which includes vintage fabrics and saris, and numerous lace embellishments such as hand-dyed laces.

So what is fabric collage? It is the gathering up of treasured pieces of textile fabrics or papers, then layering and joining them together with an assortment of seaming, and embroidery techniques. Choose from traditional seaming, appliqué or over laying raw seams for a fashionable appearance or felting. This creates a base fabric for you to beautify. Create pleasing patterns, or tell a story with your work. Crazy patchwork is a type of collage with its roots deep in history. You can make books, wall panels, bags, artist trading cards and much more.

Getting ready for your collage – Fabrics can be prepared for collage by shredding or cutting strips, fraying or burning edges and holes, crumpling or pleating fabrics for texture. Sometimes pieces of lace from a family member are stitched in to the collage as memorabilia. Numerous mediums can be painted or stamped onto fabrics. Some fabrics can be so glitzy they frighten me, but when layered with lace and sheer on top, a beautiful light shines through. Embroidering and quilting with hand-dyed silk threads & ribbons is fabulous for highlighting areas, making lines or borders and securing laces, adding more dimension and texture.

Surface embroidery – You can add finishing touches by stitching lovely Colour Streams sequins into place with seed beads. Colour Streams has flower sequins, square and diamond forms, petite 2mm wide and 3mm wide sequins in a broad colour variety. Your work will have sparks of light from these striking sequins. Many people collect old & new buttons. Some even like to use their assortment of buttons to decorate with diverse colours, sizes and textures. These interesting creations are very appealing to the eye. There is a range of natural and hand-dyed mother of pearl buttons offered. Mix in a few beads amongst them and it is another highlight in your collage.

Our fabric embroidery kits show off these collage methods in a few different designs. This kit started with a stiffener, in this case felt, layered hand-dyed Habatai silk then hand-dyed lace, hand-dyed crinkle silk chiffon, braids & trims, embroidery then beading. When finished, your work will have such rich textures and fabrics that it will look much more complex than it actually is. Colour Streams hand-dyes overdyed products, which makes colour play easy. Changing colours or fabrics and threads bring a deepness to the tint and tone of your embroidery.

My thinking is ‘Let the Colour do the Work’.

How to Make a Seed Bead Necklace with Pendant

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