While attending the Quilt Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, I learned about a rather new and novel technique to stencil or paint on fabric. The key element is something that I doubt you have in your sewing room. It's shaving cream. I hope you'll be encouraged to give this a try after watching my Nancy's Corner interview. Often, we think of quilting working with pieces of fabric, sewing it together to create a design. Well, with me today is Thomas and Joyce Teng, who works with interesting stencils, mediums such as shaving cream and gels, and interesting ink from Japan to create beautiful designs. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy.
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Thank you. - It's a great honor to be here. Well, my pleasure to introduce you, and when I look at your designs, I'm amazed at the softness and the beauty that can be created just on a solid piece of fabric. So, Thomas, could you give us a little demonstration how this goes? How this works? Great. Okay. Yeah, it's very easy. We're just using any kind of shaving cream from any store. Sure. And then you put a little bit of shaving cream on a tray. -
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Okay. Flatten it, like, with a squeegee, just like ink. Like you're frosting a cake. - Yes, frosting a cake. And then you drop your ink on it. Just randomly. Sure. It's beautiful so far. And then you're marbling it with sticks, tool, or any kind of sticks. Lovely. Drop your fabric on it. The beauty of this ink is, you can use any kind of fabric, from the cheapest muslin to silk to polyester to paper to wood to leather... Wow. - To any kind of fabric. Pick it up. Oh. Presto. Get rid of the excess shaving cream. -
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Bingo. Got a beautifully printed marble fabric. In an air-conditioned room, take about 20 to 30 minutes. It will dry, and then you'll iron it, and it's permanent-permanent. Permanent-permanent, without setting it, and then-- Yeah, you need to iron it. Heat-set. - Iron it. Yes. Traditionally, many people used this on paper, or they drew directly on silk.
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Yes. So it's really phenomenal. Now, Joyce, you like to work with stencils as well. You could also create it with stencils. Am I correct? Yes. - Okay. Here-- And the most important thing is the leftover ink. Yes. - You can still use it. Pick it up, the leftover ink, with the shaving cream. You pretend this is old T-shirt. Let your kids, grandkids play with it. Let them randomly dab it on there. Now you have your own style of tie-dye. Oh, my. Wow. Fast. And then the leftover ink-- I mean, this part, I left it blank to show even the third time, fourth time, fifth time, just do a zigzag; you create your own designed fabric. Make your own fabric. And then the stencil part. - Sure. You put a stencil on top of your fabric. Any kind of fabric again. Use a finger dabber. Drop the ink... You can directly dab the ink on it, or you can tap a little bit of shaving cream on your dabber, squeeze up a little bit-- that's a red-- excess shaving cream, and then dab the ink on it. This way, the shaving cream acts as a carrier. It transfers the inks to your fabric and make this printing job simple, easy, smooth. Oh. Lovely. Lovely. And then... - Look at it. The shiny part is just brush up a little bit of metallic ink... You will instantly create this shimmery-looking fabric. Joyce, you like to teach this, and I bet people are just amazed. Yeah, I have a class this afternoon. Three-hour class. I teach all my nine techniques. Oh. - Cannot wait. This is phenomenal, how this is done... That's how simple, how easy. Simple, easy. - It really is. With working with silk, a great way of creating a quilt pattern, a quilt design. As featured in your booth, you have big pieces, small pieces, wearable art. Mm-hmm. - Yes. Well, I want to thank you for sharing this technique, working with shaving cream or gel or many different mediums... - And the different tools. As we're just touching the tip of the iceberg. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. You're welcome. I would like to extend my special thanks to Thomas and Joyce for being my guests during our Nancy's Corner interview. Also, thanks to Lorraine Torrence for sharing her wearable art techniques in this two-part series on "Fashion
Sewing
Basic to Fabulous." Remember that you can watch many seasons of Sewing with Nancy episodes at NancyZieman.com. Don't forget to join my blog or be part of my Facebook community. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now.
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