Fun with Cork Fabric

Sometimes I like to challenge myself don't you? For me, the challenge was cork fabric with GlitterFlex! I'd heard so many good things about it and loved the professional look it gave projects. To tell you the truth I was skeptical as the only cork I'd know previously hung in my bulletin board. During my self-inflicted "challenge," I came up with a cute little in-the-hoop notebook cover complete with GlitterFlex of course!   

During my research, I learned that the best cork fabric comes from Portugal and not China.  While I was skeptical how well cork fabric would work, I found it very easy to use and see more cork projects in my future. 

There are a few rules:

1. Don't iron.
2. Don't fold or you'll wind up with a permanent crease.
3. It's best to have the lines of the cork fabric going around a folded edges instead of along the side of a folded edge so it doesn't "split" over time.

The first rule was a problem as I wanted to use GlitterFlex to add sparkle.  A girl's gotta have sparkle, right? Time to break the rules. If there's something I want done and they say "no," I try and figure out a way to make it work. Besides, the cork police don't live at my house.

Pressing cloth to the rescue!  I used a pressing cloth (simple scrap of cotton will do nicely) and pressed away.  No issues.

I did notice that I needed to use some pressure to make the GlitterFlex adhere to the cork fabric.  I assume the finish on the cork was the reason.

Raw edges are permitted as it doesn't ravel. Cool!

Also Transpore tape is my new best friend for in-the-hoop projects as it holds things firmly in place and tears away easily.  However, if you have cork fabric with metallic in it, you might want to keep the Transpore tape off of the metallic as it can pull the metallic portion off. Lesson learned during my experimentation.

I think you'll find using cork fabric loads of fun just like I did!  A little bit of cork adds a lot of "punch". 

Using GlitterFlex with machine embroidery video can be found here.