Wednesday, August 20, 2008

"Friends"...Angelina Flowers

I am not ready to stop making 3 D flowers!

My angelina flowers are an improvement on the blue flax and dianthus that went on the Spring CQ. This time I used much heavier fusible web to bond the angelina to a piece of silk so the two layers won't separate. Here's my process....

This is my little pile of angelina fibers..actually, two different colors that have been blended together.

You layer your fibers between two sheets of waxed paper...or in this case (as I am out of waxed paper) some release paper from some fusible web.
Angelina loses its sparkle if you apply the heat for too long. The idea is to tap it with the iron just long enough for the fibers to melt together.

Like this!

Here are my layers of silk dupioni, fusible web, and my sheet of angelina.
The silk isn't necessary really...you can cut out the angelina and it would act just like fabric (with no raveling of course). But I wanted my petals to be a wee bit more substantial.
When fusing my layers, I ironed with the silk side up to avoid putting direct heat on the angelina. I wanted that sparkle!

It was a simple matter to cut out my petals.

And then I cheated. Instead of pinning all my petals into place on my quilt (and making holes in the angelina that I didn't want), I first glued them into place with my trusty E6000 glue. This is probably a disaster in terms of archival issues, but oh well!

Sometimes expediency is virtue enough.

I was a good girl and did tack them down with some beading thread, though...

...and covered my center with a sequin and a bead.

Here is the wreath of flowers as of this morning....

It's getting there!

If you are interested in getting some angelina, I bought mine from Betty Blais of Embellishment Village. She and her husband are great folks to do business with.

11 comments :

Vicki W said...

I love your flower tutorials and your Friends piece is really lovely.

Debra Dixon said...

Isn't it curious how we will grab onto an idea or technique and not let go until we are bored stupid with it?

Looks very lovely!

Anonymous said...

thanks for showing how you did these flowers - this is very pretty, but without *quite* the same the impact of your spring floral :)

Micki said...

Thanks for the tutorial, the flowers look lovely. You might want to consider getting some Neutral pH Adhesive by Lineco for future use. It is acid free, archival quality. I got mine at Dick Blicks.

Barbara C said...

Very pretty!

Susan Elliott said...

The sparkle of those angelina fibers really shows on the photograph. No spoiling of the shine there...

JoWynn Johns said...

Dear Allie, what happened to the yellow flower? I've gone back and forth, looking for it and it's definitely gone!

Thanks for the show-and-tell. I got some Angelina recently and I'm eager to try it.

The Friends piece is delicious. I'm running out of adjectives, my dear.

Summerset said...

Pretty - I love the contrast between the dark blue background and the red/yellow/pink flowers.

glaucia said...

On my blog there is a little "I love your blog" award for you. I love to come here and see all your beautiful work, your wonderful garden and learn the techniques you kindly share with us. Thank you!
Hugs from sunny Brazil

Susan said...

Allie, as always, it's a pleasure to see the process you go through to create the beautiful things you make. I bought some angelina probably 2 years ago at PIQF, but didn't have a clue what to do with it. Now I'll have to see if I can find it. =)

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