New Textiles 2011

On last Tuesday’s presentation class I was very impressed by the magnetic, flexible silicone that Leah has showed us. For this assignment response I wanted to experiment with magnets and make a soft material that could attract them. I used a steel fiber and mixed it with Angelina heat bondable fiber.

Since Angelina fiber wouldn’t bond to any other material I needed to set the steel fiber layer in beween two Angelina layers. I pressed them with hot iron and cut out a “Letter paper size” piece. At the end I tested Steel Angelina with magnets. The first version of my experiment appeared to be very thin and almost transparent. I liked the effect but the material was very fragile. I decided to repeat the process with more fibers. Both pieces attract magnets, however the thicker material has a stronger attribute.