Wednesday 4 November 2009

What is an embellishing machine?

Machine embellishing

Wipso has, as usual, beat me to it!! She has taken photos of her machine and explained how it works, so if you want a look then pop over to:

http://wipso-astitchintime.blogspot.com/

Our embellishers are Huskystar ER10 made by Husqvarna Viking. I have owned 3 different sewing machines made by Huskvarna and have found them to be robust and reliable so the Huskystar was my choice. There are several other similar machines.

The basic idea is that fabric/wool/threads etc can be felted to each other using the machine. That means they are fused together without using stitching. The 5 barbed needles simply pierce the top fabric and drag bits into the one below, thus making them fuse together. Its that easy.
Large pieces of work can be felted down really quickly and built up layer upon layer.
The machine is light and easy to carry - after all - its only a small motor and 5 needles - it doesn't have all the heavy stuff a sewing machine needs inside it!


Clover needle felting hand punch

I have a little hand needle felting punch that does the same thing but is much slower of course. Its fine for small pieces of flat felt work like the bits I use for card making. The little hand punch works in the same way, with 5 needles that felt fabrics together - just place them on a piece of foam or specially designed "brush" and push the punch up and down on top of the fabrics. So if you fancy needle felting but don't want to splash out on a machine - then this might be worth a try. Its good fun!

3 comments:

Annie said...

Hehehe I have one of those too :-) Its worth trying one of these before buying the machine but watch your fingers cos it's very sharp....my pin cushion fingers will agree with me there :-)

her at home said...

Inspired by my latest projectto make a felted christmas stockind for Eldest spurred on by your blogs I spent far too long reading felting blogs online waiting for my glaze to dry enough to handle! I am getting quite re hooked on felting things seem to have gone much more hi-tec since I tried a few attempts 15 odd years ago!

muddyboots said...

embellishing machine, what a wonderful sound bit of kit, embellishing love the word