 Hey guys, it's Dana. Today we're going to take your fabric to a whole new level. We are going to laminate it and then we're going to sew with it and then your friends are going to be like, what? You made that from a cool toy and you're going to be like, yeah, so let's do it. Sewing with vinyl and synthetic fabrics can be really fun and it doesn't have to be scary. They can be sewn on a standard sewing machine with a standard needle and the great thing is the vinyl makes the fabric a little bit waterproof on the outside and possibly on the inside. So it's great to take to the pool or to the beach. You can put some of your things in there and it's also fantastic when you have kids because if you know anything about kids, things often get messy or get drug across the bathroom floor at the park, you know what I mean. This way you can just wipe that surface right on down. Now you can buy some pre-laminated cotton fabric in fabric stores such as this print right here and there are tons of cute prints out there but I often find that they're a little more pricey than your standard cotton. So if you have a cute fabric print that you want to laminate, why not just do it yourself? At least that's how I see it. The first way to waterproof your fabric is to simply sew a layer of vinyl on top of your fabric. Now that's not truly laminating it but it adds a cool effect. You can buy clear plastic vinyl such as this right here by the yard in the fabric store and as you can see there's another layer of tissue paper in the chain. The vinyl itself is actually just clear. This paper just keeps it from sticking to itself as you keep it stored. I often use this to sew little zipper pouches and to sew tote bags sometimes I'll sew it with a layer of artwork in between or something fun like that and this comes in different gauges meaning different weights of plastic. You can get it really thin or you can get it thick but you need to remember if you get it too thick it's going to be hard when you fold it over onto itself to sew it. Now for this particular zipper pouch I really wanted something bright and fun and I remembered back to last summer when I bought a new pool toy and my hot pink tube got popped the first day I brought it home. I was about to throw it away and then I realized that would make some awesome fabric. So what I did is I cut around my little tube so it became a piece of fabric. I take my cotton fabric pieces for my zipper pouch, lay them on top, cut around so I had two layers of the vinyl and then I sewed that all together with my zipper to create this cool little neon pouch. Now technically these are separate layers as you can see they're not really fused together. It still is a cool effect but let me show you how to properly actually laminate and fuse the two layers together. To laminate your fabric you want a special type of vinyl that you can buy in the fabric store on rolls or in these special pre-cut boxes. The brand I'm using is called vinyl fuse and I should point out that you always want to read the instructions on the back of your product whether it's in the box or you bought it on the roll because it will tell you specifically how to apply it to the fabric and it will give you certain cautions such as vinyl fuse is not recommended to use and items that children might put in their mouth. So you probably don't want to use it for a baby bib even though that would be completely adorable. Here is how it works and how it looks. It has a piece of paper on the back just like the other vinyl I showed you except that this one when I peel it back. This vinyl is a little bit sticky on one side so what you're basically going to do is put it onto your fabric then we're going to cover it with a piece of paper or a cloth and press it with an iron and the heat is going to fuse those two layers together. So let's try it out. I'm laminating my particular fabric so that I can make this really large zipper pouch but you can use your laminated fabric for a variety of projects. You could make a really cool purse or a makeup bag. You could well you might even try laminating this skirt. I might have to try that myself. So I've already cut out my pieces for my zipper pouch and I should point out that some projects you might want to laminate both sides maybe the inside and the outside of the bag. I do find that laminating both sides can be a little bit more cumbersome and a bit more intermediate level but you know I'm always up for adventure so if you want to try that out go for it. So I'm only going to laminate the outside of my pouch so I'm going to set the lining pieces aside for now and we're going to pull the vinyl out of the box and cut out our pieces. I kind of like buying it in this little box because then it's rolled up really nice and concise and I lay my fabric right on top and I'm going to cut it to just the same dimensions. Now you could do this backwards as well you could actually cut out the vinyl first press it on some fabric and then cut out the fabric just do whichever way works best for you or you could trace it first and then cut it out but you know me I'm kind of a short cut kind of person I don't really like tracing first it just takes too long. There we go. So these aside and clear everything away from your space what's important when you start putting this on is that there is nothing on your fabric otherwise it's going to become fused into the layers. So make sure your area is somewhat clean then peel back the paper and sometimes it can be hard to find where the paper comes off just like that and like I said one side is sticky but it's not so sticky that if you don't get it in the right spot you're stuck forever you have some wiggle room. So everything's flat and you might want to press this first if you have any major wrinkles so that everything looks perfect and beautiful and then just line it up like that. Okay and smooth it out again if you were off a little bit just kind of peel it up and do it again now we're ready to go to our iron and press it all in place. I have my first piece of fabric here with the vinyl already on top like we just did and it's recommended on the box that you take the piece of paper that was attached to the vinyl laid on top and use that to protect your iron as you press everything in place and that does work great but the one thing I find is that if you're not exactly in the right spot you might get a little bit of vinyl at the edges that will suddenly cinch up and you'll notice it right away so what I actually prefer to use is a press cloth which is actually just a fancy word for a thin piece of fabric or what I'm using here at dishtowel I like to place that on top and then go over the top of that you want your iron on a medium setting or whatever is recommended on your box and then you just want to press it around and don't stay in one particular spot for too long or it might start to melt and it will create some little bubbles or folds in your laminate and they also like to start in the middle and press out to the sides just to make sure you don't get any bubbles in there just do this for I don't know a few seconds and when I peel this back let's see oh there you can tell it's already somewhat together now flip it over to the back use your iron you don't need the cloth this time but just be careful you don't get too close to the edges and press on the back as well ah there we go nice odd in action my iron got too close to that plastic edge okay let's do that again okay okay there we go laminated fabric all ready to sew something but one more thing I'm going to do to mine is I want to sew some decorative top stitching on there just to kind of hold it in place even more and I think it will look kind of fun but you could just go with it as it is so let's go to the sewing machine when you're sewing with vinyl the plastic might have a tendency to get stuck under your presser foot as you're sewing there's a few tricks you could use you could take a piece of transparent tape and place it on the bottom of your presser foot and that will help it glide through just a little more smoothly but what I like to use best is this little plastic tough long presser foot you can get it for any brand of sewing machine this one is particular to my baby lock machine and it goes on really easy you take off your standard foot and it snaps right in place there we go just like that and it makes it so much smoother when I'm sewing now the second thing I want to do is that I'm going to use this really fun neon thread can you tell I have a thing for neon and I want to sort of quilt the top of this fabric meaning I'm going to sew a bunch of lines on top and this print in particular is great because I can make this little grid all across the top so come over to my machine and thread it in I'm just following all the guidelines on my machine follow whatever guidelines are on your machine it's usually pretty easy to do up around and back down and then I love pressing my magic button here the reds it for me thank you baby lock I'm keeping white thread in the bobbin which is the bottom thread because it's white on the back and you're not really going to see that okay I'm going to start right in the middle of my print sewing a line right down do a little back stitch at the beginning and then just sew right down this particular print a fabric is really great to sew this grid that I'm going to do because it has all these dots and lines there for me it's from my boardwalk delight fabric collection that I designed and you can see more about that in my other video okay I did a back stitch at the end cut my threads which love my cutting button and then I'm just going to go to the next line if you find that you're going too slow or too fast you can adjust your speed control over here I'm actually going to go a little bit faster there we go and you can see how smoothly the fabric is just going through the machine it's great come my friends and you'll also notice that the fabric is not bubbling up or shifting as I'm going and that's because we fuse those two layers together keep going down now I'm going to keep going and continuing this pattern all the way down and then I'm going to turn it and do stripes going the other direction okay I'm all done quilting the top of my fabric and look how cool that looks I love the way the neon thread just pops really cool effect I'm excited to use it to finish off so in my little zipper pouch or big zipper pouch and I'm excited to see what you do with your laminated fabric for more ideas and tutorials visit my website madeeveryday.com and for more information on sewing machines go to babylock.com for it's all for the love of sewing I'll see you next time bye