Embossing Velvet
I had a project recently that involved textured cotton velvet upholstery, and I wanted to try to recreate the texture to fill some large areas of loss.
I came across several blogs showing how to emboss velvet with synthetic fiber content using rubber stamps, which seemed like a promising direction. I did some experimenting with paperclips and washers (I couldn’t find a stamp) and pieces of various velvet scraps we had in the lab. The results were mostly as expected. The metal made great impressions in velvet with synthetic content, but the impressions it left in the 100% cotton velvet were short lasting.
Unfortunately the only white velvet we already had was the cotton, and we were not in a position to purchase additional materials.
This lead to experimenting with using paint to help set the textured pattern. After a few tries I settled on the following procedure:
Brush PROfab opaque textile paint diluted with lo-crock binder onto the velvet, using a stiff bristled brush to push the paint into the pile.
Allow the paint to partially dry, approximately 5 minutes.
Flip the painted velvet over on top of the “mold” and make sure you are happy with the positioning. This is best done on a hard surface. Cover the back of the velvet with a press cloth, and spray the cloth with water. You want it nice and damp, but not soaking wet.
Press the velvet into the “mold” with an iron at the hottest setting the fabric can handle. The more force you use the crisper the impression will be. Hold the iron in place for at least 1 minute.
Peel up the textured velvet.
One thing to note about this process: the embossed areas became lighter in color, which actually worked perfectly for what I was trying to recreate. Using the paint also stiffened the fabric some and definitely made pile feel crusty . This was not a problem for the upholstery, but would have been a problem in other applications of this technique.
HFC’s fabulous Objects Fellow Daisy Greenwell offered to pierce a die out of brass of the texture that I needed, and it worked wonderfully with the method above. A rubber stamp (which it is possible to have custom made for a reasonable cost) would also likely have worked with this method, though the thickness of the brass of our custom die helped in making nice deep impressions in the pile.
