The magic of Sulky Solvy in the world of fibre art

Yesterday, I showed you how to use 3 different Sulky stabilizers to create some bobbin work. Today, we’ll be exploring the magic of Solvy Water Soluble Stabilizers!

Solvy Water Soluble Stabilizer and Super Solvy water soluble stabilizer are new products for me and I was really looking forward to trying some new techniques with them. You can read all about how these Solvy products are used as stabilizers for many different projects on my post, Introducing Sulky stabilizers | What they are and what to use them for, but I wanted to try something different. I decided to make new fabric from wool roving and cotton fabric using Solvy!

Here’s how you can try this too.

Cut a piece of Sulky Solvy or Sulky Super Solvy 10″ x 12″.

Gather up some scraps of wool roving and lay them on the bottom half of the Solvy rectangle. You can arrange them randomly or place them in a specific design.

Fold the other half of the Solvy rectangle over the roving and pin it in place. You now have Solvy on both sides of the wool roving.

Stitch across the Solvy “sandwich” using an invisible thread. I stitched a series of closely spaced wavy lines across the Solvy and wool roving. If there is any extra unstitched Solvy at the top or on the sides, be sure to cut it off and save it in a little jar. We’ll be using it later!

Following the instructions on the Solvy package, soak the Solvy “sandwich” in water until all the stabilizer has dissolved. Lay flat to dry. Now you have a new piece of “fabric” that can be used as desired! Mine is going to be used for the foreground in a little appliqué scene.

I used the same technique to create “fabric” for 2 little houses. This time I used strips of cotton fabric and overlapped them before stitching.

Here are my foreground fabric and house fabric ready to use.

My background fabric is a 6″ x 8″ square of hand-dyed wool, so the houses are quite small. Cut the brown fabric into 3 pieces that are about 1″ – 2″ square for the houses. From wool or fabric, cut roof shapes to fit the houses. You are creating as you go here, so there are no hard and fast rules for cutting the house and roof pieces.

Arrange the ground and house shapes as desired and then baste them in place on the background fabric.

Appliqué the shapes to the background fabric. I used a blanket stitch, but you can use a different stitch if you wish.

The next step is to add some embellishment. Embroider some door shapes, add some flower shapes on the foreground and then sew some beads in the “sky”.

I mounted my little scene (using HeatnBond fusible web) on a 9″ x 12″ artist’s canvas that I painted black, but it could also be appliqued to a fabric background. You are the designer here – have fun and be creative!

Join me again tomorrow when I show you another little Solvy appliqué design and also how to use those left-over bits of Sulky Solvy or Sulky Super Solvy…

This is part 4 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 3: Bobbin Work is even more exciting with the right Sulky stabilizer!

Go to part 5: Intensifying fiber art magic using leftover Sulky Solvy stabilizer