Today I met with my local group and we made silk paper. I have done this before and actually it is the first thing I tried when starting out in fiber art. We used either matte medium or textile medium mixed with water to glue the silk layers together. I made some fairly thick and others very thin. I’m not sure what I will do with all of these yet. Since they have medium in them, I’m not sure they will work well with felting but I might try one and see. Here are the photos of what I made. Most of them are still wet at this point. The textured white one is dry.
I will probably add stitch to them as it is very easy to stitch on silk paper either with machine or hand. You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them. Hope you have a nice weekend!
Ruth Lane Art 
Some nice ‘papers’ there Ruth. Thanks for the tip on using textile medium, I’ve used starch and vanishing fabric, but I’ll definitely give the textile medium a go next time. In fact it sounds like a nice project for today – no time like the present. 🙂
Thanks Judith! I like using the medium as it holds the silk together so well. I would love to see your results.
They are pretty – I especially like the one with the leaves in.
I’ve only made silk paper with cmc paste and ordinary wallpaper paste, both of which felted in to wool easily.
I failed using the aerosol starch method – the fibres took off and floated around my room for ages!
Thanks Lyn! I like the one with leaves too. Starch sprayed on is rather fiddly.
They’re really nice, Ruth, some of them have a very ‘fluid’ look to them, a bit like dropping ink into water.
Thanks Zed! It is interesting how the fibers look fluid, isn’t it?
Wow, I have not seen this before, what silk did you use, was it woven or silk threads. They certainly turned out well. Karen
Thanks Karen! Mainly we used silk roving but there were many other varieties used – noil, sari threads, caps, hankies etc.
They look lovely Ruth, the textured ones remind me of ripples on water. I normally cut my silk papers up and use them to add shiny accents to my felt but I’m tempted to make some like yours and use them whole. Great idea to include some leaves too, I’m curious to know if the silk over the top will be enough to anchor them onto a piece of felt?
Thanks Teri!
We will see how it all works out. Not sure myself.
I love making silk paper. I’ve only used the acrylic medium once to try to make a bowl but failed. The medium doesn’t wash out, so I’m stuck with a stiff silky mess that doesn’t wash out.. I hope you have better luck with yours. The ones I made with starch spray or waxed paper were easy to felt.
When you use medium, generally the paper is used just as it is. It isn’t sticky when it’s dry.
Not sticky just very stiff.
Very pretty – I look forward to seeing them felted!
I remember in the dim and distant past making silk paper by ironing gummy(?) silk between sheets of baking parchment. But that was before I got into felting, so I don’t know how that would have stood up to being felted.
That would work to felt. You can cut it into shapes and felt them in. Not sure how the fabric medium will hold up to felting.