Suffolk Puffs with Bondaweb

I have previously made Suffolk Puffs in this project in Sewing Suffolk Puffs, in this blog I am experimenting to find the perfect sized Suffolk Puffs and colour for the centre piece and practising with the use of bondaweb.

In my Constructing my Bubble/Balloon Skirt – Toile post I pinned my three largest Suffolk Puffs I made out of calico onto my practice skirt and I really like the size of the Suffolk Puffs on the skirt. 

For my final piece, I would like to add a second colour of fabric inside using bondaweb. I haven’t trialed it in this project, although I have used this technique and used bondaweb before.

I started by looking for larger sized circular objects, similar to what I used to create my three largest Suffolk Puffs in Sewing Suffolk Puffs. I found 5 different large circular objects to draw around which I thought would create the ideal sized Suffolk Puffs.

I used an old pillow case to create these practice Suffolk Puffs, this is a similar colour to the fabric I intend to use for my final piece.

I then fully unpicked the pillow case so it was just one large piece of fabric.

I started by drawing around each object using a biro before cutting all 5 circles out, the process is shown below in the photographs.

Below is a photograph of all 5 objects with all 5 fabric circles below.

I then ironed all 5 circles to remove the creases in the fabric.

I then found a dark grey jersey fabric and drew around a sellotape roll to create my 5 inner circles. After this I also cut 5 circles the exact same size out of bondaweb.

For each Suffolk Puff I needed a an outer circle of fabric, an smaller inner circle of fabric and another circle the same size out of bondaweb.

I started the bondaweb process by getting a damp cloth, this helps the bondaweb to fuse with the fabric. I started by laying the inside of the inner circle of fabric facing up with the bondaweb circle. With the rough webbed side on top, I then placed my damp cloth on top of the circles and then placed the iron on top of the circle for 10-15 seconds. The instructions for the bondaweb says that you don’t need a damp cloth for this particular part of the process but I personally found that the bondaweb fused better with the fabric using it.

Once I had ironed it for 10-15 seconds, I removed the damp cloth from the circles and allowed the fabric to cool slightly before carefully removing the paper.

This is what the inner circle of fabric looked like once I had removed the paper.

I then got my larger circle of fabric and laid it flat on the ironing board board before placing the inner circle with the side that has the adhesive on facing down. I then covered the circles with a damp cloth and ironed the samples for 10-15 seconds.

This is what the fabric looked like once it was fully dry and the inner circled had been adhered to the larger orange circle. I then repeated the same process above for the other 4 Suffolk Puffs.

I then got a matching needle and thread and I threaded my needle with double thread and hand sewed a even running stitch all around the edge before carefully pulling the thread to gather the fabric. Next I evenly spaced the gathers before tying a knot in the thread and finishing the Suffolk Puff. I followed the same step to sew all 5.

This is a close up of one of the fully finished Suffolk Puffs.

These are my 5 finished varied sized Suffolk Puffs pinned on my bubble/balloon skirt practice toile.

I love all the sizes of Suffolk Puffs and I have decided for my final piece Suffolk Puffs I will use the same objects to drew around. This will allow me to create exactly the same size Suffolk Puffs as photographed below, which are the perfect size.

I am now really looking forward to creating my Suffolk Puffs for my final piece with my specially selected fabric for this project.