Lutterworth Embroiderer’s Guild

Mask Workshop

December 2008

It was great to visit Lutterworth again and the food was superb!  The ladies do put on a magnificent spread.

The workshop was full and very successful and the ladies produced some superb masks without using an embroidery hoop.  The method involves using layers of fabrics all held together by Aquatics Bond, a sticky-backed stabiliser that dissolves in water.  The stiffening agent for the mask was Aquatics Badgemaster soluble film, a strong dissolvable film that is used in industry to stabilise the work when producing badges.  This film dissolves at a slower rate than the Aquatics Bond and when put into warm water dissoves enough after 30 seconds that it will set hard when dried, this allows plenty of time to form the mask over a mould and dry it with a hairdryer, the inside is left to dry overnight to keep its shape.  The film is so strong you can recycle all your scrap bits by sticking them back together, this is done by placing a small amount of film in a jar with hot water to make a glue, you then brush a tiny bit onto the edges of the recycled film pieces and join them together to make a new sheet.