Could this be a return to creativity?

A few weeks ago I bought this book by Wendy Cotterill. It is full of ideas for using these heat reactive fabrics and she mentions that Lutrador can be worked on with the embellisher. I have had Lutrador for ages and never done anything interesting with it - likewise the embellisher - so yesterday, after being good and doing yet more weeding, I painted some sheets of A4 copy paper with transfer paints which is the best way of colouring Lutrador, and when dry I ironed my pieces in readiness.

The sample above had a base of kunin felt which I lightly embellished to hold the two layers together. I laid strips of organza, silk waste, hand made felt shapes and wool yarn with more wisps of silk waste on top and worked all over the piece with the embellisher to hold everything together. Sadly the colours are not accurate and look very washed out in these photos - in reality they are very rich and quite deep.

I then attacked the piece with a heat gun and achieved these nice textured holes as the heat went through the Lutrador and kunin felt. I have two heat guns - one shaped like a small hairdryer which is more gentle, and one like a long fat sausage which is more powerful - I used the more powerful one here and am quite pleased with this sample.

This little piece was embellished directly onto the coloured Lutrador with no backing at all. I used little strips of muslin, wool tops and silk waste. When you place strips onto the fabric they look rather straight and stiff, but the embellisher soon does it's own thing with them and you end up with softer shapes and trailing lines which I like.

When I heated it, the front looked very little changed but this is the reverse which I find more interesting.

For this piece I worked on cheap stretchy synthetic velvet, again with layers of silk waste and wool yarn. I love the silk waste and the way the colours can be blended as you apply little wisps of it.

Again, I applied heat but ended up with a fancy dog bowl! I like the holes in the centre but not the bunched up edges, but they could be avoided or minimised by trimming away some of the fabric before applying the heat. I just played here with no preconceived ideas of what I was producing. I suppose the more I play, the more control I will have over the whole procedure.

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I also have some Evolon which has a lovely soft suede-like feel to it. It will be lovely for book covers.