Crinkled fabric can be used for any type of sewing project including garments, and of course bags and purses, and adds interesting surface texture and dimension.
Making crinkled fabric texture is an easy technique and works particularly well for soft and sheer fabrics such as rayon and silk. You will need to cut the fabric oversize to allow for shrinkage due to the crinkling process. Cutting size will vary depending on how large your project is and what type of fabric you use, but should be about 10% to 25% larger than your finished size. You may need to experiment with this to get an accurate size.
To make the crinkles, first soak the fabric in some water and wring the water out until the fabric is damp. Then twist the fabric as tightly as you can until it twists itself into a ball. Secure the ball with a rubber band and then walk away and leave it alone until it dries. This is probably the hardest thing to do because you’ll constantly be wanting to take a peak at it but you may have to leave it overnight till it’s good and dry, or maybe longer if you use a large piece of fabric.
When the fabric is dry, unfold it and you should now have some beautiful crinkly fabric. At this point the crinkles are not permanent so if you wash the fabric the crinkles will wash out.
To make the crinkles permanent, you need to iron a piece of fusible interfacing to the back of the fabric.
For small pieces of fabric, the easiest way to do this is to spread the crinkled fabric out right side facing down, and pin it to an ironing board, a pressing board, or a towel. Then position the fusible interfacing on top and press it with a hot iron. For larger pieces of fabric, you would have to press it one small section at a time. Once the fabric is ironed to the fusible interfacing, the crinkles are permanent and you can now cut it up and use it any way you like.
This piece of fabric ended up being used as the background for a small embellished quilt.
And the lovely crinkles made perfect little pockets for adding bead clusters.
