3D print onto tulle for bendable toys: pause, lay the fabric, print over it

You can print onto tulle (the fine net used for veils and tutus) with an ordinary FDM printer: print the first layers, pause, stretch the fabric over the bed, and resume. The next layers flow through the mesh and fuse to the plastic below, so the fabric ends up inside the part. Design it as many small pieces with gaps and you get a toy that bends and folds at the fabric: a butterfly that flaps, a turtle with bendy legs, a sheet of dragon scales.

This guide is drawn from student experiments at Fab Academy and Fabricademy (Textile Academy); it is not a write-up of our own finished build. Design numbers in the example are starting points for a test print.

Why the fabric holds

Tulle is an open mesh, not a tight weave. Hot plastic from the nozzle passes through the holes and fuses to the layer printed before. The Fab Academy project chose tulle for exactly this reason: molten plastic can fill the gaps in the fabric. The fabric is sandwiched between plastic above and below, not just stuck to the surface.

The part that bends is the fabric in the gaps between plastic pieces. The pieces themselves are as stiff as the filament. If the model is one continuous plate, the fabric adds nothing; it has to be designed as segments.

Two ways people do it

The two sources pause at different points.

	Pause after layer 1	Pause after layers 2–3
Source example	Fabricademy (Ender 3 V2)	Fab Academy (Prusa printer, PrusaSlicer)
Plastic under fabric	Very thin	Thicker, stiffer segments
Holding the fabric	Clamps, pulling it flat	Double-sided tape or binder clips on the bed edge
Watch out for	Stretching the fabric over the bed is fiddly	Watch the first layers after resuming so the nozzle doesn’t drag the fabric

The Fabricademy settings, as a starting point: nozzle 200 °C, bed 60 °C, 0.12 mm layers, first-layer speed 20 mm/s, first-layer fan 0%, infill 20%. The Fab Academy project used PLA and found 15–30% infill suits most models.

Worked example: where to pause

Say you are making a butterfly: body and two wings as separate pieces, 1.2 mm thick in total, printed at 0.2 mm layers, with two layers under the fabric.

1. Total layers = 1.2 ÷ 0.2 = 6 layers.
2. Two layers under the fabric finish at 2 × 0.2 = 0.4 mm.
3. Put the pause before layer 3, which prints at 0.6 mm. (In PrusaSlicer, move the layer slider to 0.60 and choose Insert pause print; it pauses before the selected layer.)
4. After resuming, 4 layers print over the fabric: 4 × 0.2 = 0.8 mm.

With 0.12 mm layers and a pause after layer 1, as in the Fabricademy example, only 0.12 mm sits under the fabric and the pause goes before layer 2 at 0.24 mm. Whenever you change layer height, recalculate the pause.

Gaps between segments. The gap is the fabric hinge. A narrow gap folds a little; a wide one folds a lot but the pieces look spaced out. Print a test strip with 1, 2 and 3 mm gaps on one piece of fabric and pick the one that bends the way you want. These gap sizes are for testing, not a standard.

Step by step

1. Slicer settings. Turn off the skirt (Fabricademy’s tip: it sticks to the fabric). No supports (Fab Academy’s warning: they fuse to the fabric). Design every piece to sit flat.
2. Add the pause. In PrusaSlicer: layer slider, then Insert pause print (M601). In OrcaSlicer or Bambu Studio, use the add-pause control on the layer slider in Preview. Another route is editing the G-code so the head moves to a corner before pausing; the Fab Academy project used G28 Y0 X0 followed by M0 (check which commands your firmware supports).
3. Cut the fabric oversize so clamps or tape can grip the edges.
4. Print until it pauses. The head lifts away and waits.
5. Lay the fabric. Smooth out every wrinkle, pull it taut and clamp or tape it at the bed edges. Keep clamps out of the nozzle’s path.
6. Resume and watch the next few layers to be sure the nozzle isn’t dragging or snagging the fabric.
7. Remove the part. Let the bed cool, peel tape off slowly so the tulle doesn’t tear, and trim the excess with scissors.

Loose fabric means a dragging nozzle. Spend more time laying the fabric than tuning the printer.

Toy ideas that suit this

• Butterfly or bird: one body, two wings. Hold the body and shake; the wings flap on the fabric.
• Scales or armour: dozens of small hexagons with even gaps make a sheet that curves around your hand.
• A fabric book for kids: letters or animals printed onto fabric, folded into pages.

Toys with small pieces that could come off are not for young children who still put things in their mouths. Pull-test every piece before handing it over.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the skirt on. It prints onto the fabric and has to be cut away.
• Using supports. They fuse to the fabric and won’t come off. Design every piece flat.
• Wrinkled or slack fabric. The nozzle catches it, layers shift or the fabric folds into the part.
• Not recalculating the pause after changing layer height. The printer stops at the wrong layer.
• Modelling one solid plate. The fabric is buried in plastic everywhere and nothing bends.
• Pulling the fabric off a hot bed. The plastic is still soft and the part warps.

While the printer waits, the nozzle is still near 200 °C and the bed around 60 °C. Lay the fabric without reaching near the nozzle, and do not resume until your hands are clear.

If you have never used a mid-print pause, the basics are in the multi-colour printing lesson. If your first layer isn’t clean yet, fix bed levelling first; fabric makes first-layer problems more obvious.

Sources

• 7. Computational Couture (printing on tulle) — Fabricademy 2024
• Wildcard Week (3D printing on fabric) — Fab Academy 2020
• Insert pause or custom G-code at layer — Prusa Knowledge Base