Snowflake Stitching on Soluble Film

We are down to single figures for daytime UK temperatures now, no snow yet but definitely chilly. I had better hurry up and finish knitting my fingerless gloves!

This week I’m making a stitched bowl, one made up almost entirely of my stitches, but using soluble film as a base. At the end of the process, leaving a little of the film in the stitches (but not to show) will give the stiffening for a bowl shape.

I am going to use a snowflake stamp to create an image in Angelina fibres to inform my stitches on soluble film. You could use any other stamp or even go straight to the stitching!

Stamps are best mounted on a stamp block. They just stick on their own but can be peeled back off again.

I selected a couple of the Angelina fibres from the cool assortment and heated the iron to medium heat. I placed the stamp block on my ironing board with the snowflake stamp uppermost and inked it using an ink pad. Before the ink dries I laid the Angelina fibres over the inked stamp. Making sure to cover it with baking parchment first, I then pressed the fibres onto the inked stamp, counting to 10.

It's hard to show you the effect from my photos 

I then cut out the stamped snowflake in the Angelina. This was placed within the centre of a folded piece of soluble film with a fine layer of turquoise mulberry silk hankie. I snipped a few further bits of the Angelina into the soluble film “sandwich” before placing it in an embroidery hoop.

I used a marker to draw outwards from the snowflake points to further guide my stitching.

 Free machine embroidery stitching using satin and metallic threads outlined the snowflake and then filled in the circle. If you’d like to come to a workshop to learn free machine embroidery stitching get in touch.

Once I was happy there was sufficient stitching to make a complete bowl, I released it from the hoop and cut away the excess soluble film from the outside of the circle.
Tip: save scraps of soluble film, you may try to mend pieces of the water soluble film with an iron (changing its thickness by gluing layers together, and as a possibility of using the leftovers by joining the pieces until the resulting piece will be big enough to be hooped again). Overlap pieces of film inside a sandwich of baking parchment. Use a warm iron and a little steam for a few seconds only.

This is what the stitching looked like before dissolving the film.

Dissolve the film by swishing the stitching in warm water. Remember for a bowl you want to leave a little film still in the stitching.

And this is what the stitching looked like after dissolving the film. 

I left it spread out over a plastic bowl overnight to dry.

This is what the stitched bowl looked like after drying and with some light showing through to show you the detail.

These bowls are great for storing jewellery and are very lightweight gifts to post.

As well as bowls, this method makes great brooches.

I would love to see your creations.

Helen x