Recently while attending a class on fabric postcards I was introduced to fabric paper. While not technically paper it is manufactured by Michael Miller Memories , a spin off of Michael Miller Fabrics, which can be found in many quilt stores. Basically they have taken some of their fabric lines and stiffened it and cut it into 12" x 12" sheets geared mostly to the scrapbooking industry. I was very intrigued by this new product especially since I love fabric, so, I went looking for some.Unfortunately it was a little hard to find and I eventually found it online, of course. My local scrapbooking store had not heard of it. It is available in single sheets and in ensemble packages like the one I used shown in the photo. It contains 7 - 12" x 12" sheets and 7 - 5" x 7" sheets for $16 US. The name of the package I used is Resort Floral. I did not find it in single sheets except for an Australian web site.
Since I was working with fabric paper and I have been inspired by the paper quilts I recently viewed while reporting from the International Quilt Show , I tried out a few methods of manipulating the "paper" to test it out and make my own little quilt. The package states that it acts just like paper only better. I found that it isn't necessarily better but different. For example, I had a difficult time using a paper punch with this. It took a lot of pressure to get the punch to cut through. I don't have a die cutter but it would have been probably a lot easier to use than a punch. The package also says you can rip it. This also is much more difficult than ripping paper but you can rip it like you would rip fabric to make fabric strips. The strips have less fraying than regular fabric because of the stiffening but they also warp more and have to be pressed if you need them straight. It actually cuts really well with the rotary cutter trimmer I have. If you are a quilter and not a scrapbooker you will not want to use your regular rotary cutter and ruler because it is slippery compared to non-stiffened fabric.
One of the things I really liked was the ability to put it through the printer. The quote on my little quilt was printed using my basic ink jet printer. I decided not to put machine sewing on this sample but it does sew better than paper because the needle of the sewing machine does not tear this "paper" but hand sewing the buttons on was difficult especially through 2 layers of the stiffened fabric. I used an eyelet setter to place eyelets in the top corners to add a ribbon hanger. The fabric was too flimsy to simply hang so I backed it with a piece of cardstock. Also, I glued all the pieces down, but when I use this product again I will back the sheets first with fusible web and then fuse all the pieces in place. I like the ensemble packages but being a more of a quilter it does not have enough contrasting values in the prints. For the little quilt above I only had the green for my darkest value and the remaining prints were very close to each other so I could only use them as the lighter value in my design.
In the next photo, I tried stamping on the "paper" and it did really well. I have tried to stamp regular fabric without much success of getting a sharp image. I especially like the heart wreath I stamped and did some sponging around the edges to give it an antique look.
The last photo is two flowers I made using a large Marvy flower punch. I punched 2 flowers for each flower I made then offset them and sewed together with a button. Michael Miller Memories also has a line of flowers made from paper fabric.
There is also a book by the company as well, Fabric Paper Party, published by C&T Publishing but I have not viewed this book yet. The description on the publisher's web site is "Make 3-D crafts and scrapbooks with versatile fabric paper."
This product has a lot of potential. The colors are very vibrant. The company has gone to great lengths to provide prints that are fun and colorful. The prints can be found as regular non-stiffened fabric too and their regular lines of fabric are just as whimsical as the "paper".
5 Comments:
I love your blog, I check it everyday. You have such great ideas. I made two of your giant clothes pins and gave them as little thank you gifts and everyone loved them. I plan on making more, they were so much fun to make.
I wanted to comment on the Michael Miller fabric paper. I love it. I attend a cookie swap at Christmas every year. Of course packaging is just as important (at this swap) as the quality and taste of the cookies!!! So last year I put my cookies in these adorable little mason jars (with silver lids) that I bought at Wal-Mart. I used Michael Miller fabric to cover the flat lid of the mason jar. (I made one for myself and I keep my girls barrettes in it.) I thought it would be cool to give a container people could reuse. On the recipe card, I printed the recipe on vellum and attached it with ribbon to the matching fabric paper. So you could see the fabric paper through the vellum. They were so cute. I love all of Michael Millers fabrics, but he only has a select amount in the fabric paper. I found my fabric paper on line at My Daughters Wish.
Thanks for sharing yet another great idea.
What a great article. I can say that you introduced me to a totally new product...I am very interested in trying it out! Thanks
IT is funny that you mention this product...I recently received some as a gift...It works great in a sizzix die cutter.....I found it pretty easy to work with, but wish that I had more! LOL.....I think with better advertisement and certainly with better availability this product could rock the craft world!
Great post. I just heard about this new product and was really curious as to what it was. I found you through Google search. You covered the subject very well. Your post was very helpful to me. I hope I get my hands on some soon to play around with. It does seem to have a great future.
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I just wondered where you bought the fabric paper from.
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