Whilst I was reorganising my sewing room I decided one way of tidying up was to complete another box from the Stitchbook Collective – as I said before, I’m easily distracted!! The next one on my to do pile was on Tyvek. I was interested to try it as it’s something I’ve heard a lot about – some people at myEmbroiders Guild enthuse about it.

I’m not sure exactly what tyvek is made from but it comes in either paper of fabric form, both feel quite papery, but one notable feature of both is that you can’t tear it. If you hold it up to the light you can see lots of fibres within the tyvek.

Our first job was to cut the two samples into four pieces. These were then coloured with different media, I used watercolour, silk paints, Inktense pencils and for something completely different, highlighter pens! The tyvek is then place between two sheets of greaseproof paper and a hot iron is hovered above. The tyvek suddenly shrinks and changes into weird textured pieces. If you hover too long then the whole thing will disappear! It’s another of those completely random crafts where you have no way of planning what it’s going to turn out like!

I chose two pieces I thought I could create something with and had a delve around in my textiles box. This was my base just stitched down with running stitch…

Tyvek is a bit weird to sew, it’s a bit like trying to sew soft plastic. In the end I used fly stitch, following the patterns from the tyvek. I added some trims, the twisted one is like that because that’s how it came out of the drawer and it didn’t seem to want to straighten out, I liked that effect. So this is my finished piece – very experimental I would say!!

For my second sample I simply stitched four of the other pieces onto the calico so I would remember the different effects you can get with tyvek.

It was interesting to have a play with tyvek, but I can’t say I’ll be rushing out to buy any in a hurry, mainly because it just doesn’t suit my style of embroidery. At least I know what it is now in case in the future I suddenly get an experimental mood!! This is what I’ve enjoyed about the Stitchbook Project, trying out lots of different techniques and textiles. I’m already half way through the next box – on Couching and Laid Work