How to Make Melted Fabric Beads

There are lots of fun and funky fabrics out there that, though we may not want to use them in our quilts, they're fun to play with. And one of the best things I like to do is find fabrics that are meltable and make melted fabric beads out of them. These beads make wonderful, wonderful embellishments. So I'm always looking for fabrics that respond to heat. The first thing I do when I find a funky fabric is I test it to see if it will melt. So here you can see where I've melted this fabric, and I know it's gonna heat really, really well. I also know it's gonna heat stringy. So it's gonna yield a very interesting textural result. Another fiber that I really like to melt or lace is called Lutradur and Lutradur is another spun poly fabric and it comes white or black and I buy it white and then I paint it with Dye-Na-Flow paint So it looks like it's dyed. And I can get it in lots of different colors. To make a bead, you're gonna need some of those, or melted beads, some of those melty fabrics. And in addition to the two fabrics I just talked about, I've also got this mesh nylon fabric, and this is called a Textiva foil or Angelina foil. And it's simply a meltable Mylar. I've also going to add some metal to the bead when I'm done. So I've got a metal tool and some metal, and then I need something to roll the bead around. In this case, I'm gonna make a pretty large bead. So I'm gonna use this bigger paper stump, but you could use any dowel or anything that has a round shape to it. And I've even made square beads with a square piece of wood or a square dowel. And then you need a straight pin to hold everything together while you're heating it. So lemme show you how easy and quick one of these is to make. I've had lots of bead making parties where I invite friends over and we all throw out all kinds of weird different things, and we make beads all night long. And then at the end of the night, we trade beads. It's kinda fun. So I've rolled my first layer here and I'm just gonna hold it in place while I roll my next layer. And I'm gonna center this one. Each of these fabrics were cut about the same length, but varying widths so that different amounts of them are going to show in my end result. So I've got the second layer on, and now I'm gonna add this very textured nylon fabric. And the last thing I'm gonna add is this Textiva. And I'm gonna kind of crumple it up while I add it. So that it's kind of textured before it's even melted. I have to pin these together to hold everything in place. And now I'm ready to start heating it. I'm gonna use a heat gun or an embossing tool. You can't use a blow dryer. They don't get hot enough. So a heat gun or an embossing tool. And you wanna make sure that you can hold your hands away from the area that you're going to be burning or melting. So you wanna put the heat gun very close to the surface, and you wanna pay attention to how each of the different fabrics are burning. Here my violet, which is the Lutradur. I'm melting it most here on the edge, and I'm trying to get it to lace, which means make holes. And once I can see my paper stump through it, then I know it's been burned enough. And I'll come over here and burn the other side of the violet. I want them to have a similar look. And then I'm going to come into the center. Now this center fabric was very fine, so I don't wanna put too much heat on it 'cause I might make it melt entirely away. And I definitely wanna be careful with my Angelina product because it will bronze, change its color, if I get it too hot. So we're just gonna play with different amounts of heat in different areas. Now this orange is starting to string apart. So that's gonna give us a really nice texture. And I really liked the way that nylon mesh is kind of crumpling up on itself. And the orange is splitting to reveal the purple underneath. I think that's good. So now I'm gonna let it cool. And while it's cooling a bit, I'm gonna bend some metal to put around it. So I've got this bright orange jewelry wire, and it's 28 gauge. And I cut about 10 or 12 inches of it because I've got a pretty big bead to work with. And I'm simply gonna take some needle-nose pliers and bend the ends into swirls so that the ends are not gonna be pointy. And they're gonna be decorative. So I'll do this on both ends. And then I'm gonna wrap the bead with it. Now I can use this beat as the focal point of a really tiny little art quilt, or I can make several of them and use them on a larger piece as accents or just embellishments. I leave the bead on the dowel or whatever it is I wrapped it on until I have all the metal on it or any of the other embellishments on it. So I'm simply gonna wrap this now and I like to wrap it pretty tightly and there we go. We have this fabulous, really textural, really interesting embellishment to add to our quilts. So you can just start collecting all those funky fabrics that you want and find really cool ways to melt them and heat them and make them behave in strange, interesting, fabulous ways to adorn your quilts with.