Responding to a Challenge

Dale made a suggestion on her Embellisher Machine blog about trying to mesh paper to paper - so I did. I used several different bases: thick handmade paper, a sturdy red envelope and computer paper. I had no success with any of them - whatever I tried to mesh on top did not, and either top or bottom rapidly shredded.
Then I tried paper on felt and the photo above is the record of the experiment. From the left: twisted yellow tissue paper (worked quite well), chocolate paper under organza (OK), newspaper (did not mesh until it was almost shredded), tissue paper under organza (good, so I made another sample. See below). The next section is paper towel, marbled with the shaving cream technique (worked VERY well), a strip of the red envelope which only began to mesh when very distressed and a different chocolate paper under organza. I had tried the chocolate paper on its own, but it didn't work at all. The last section is a heavy black paper that did not mesh, but when I turned over the felt I saw bits of the black coming through, so I embellished from the wrong side. The black paper is next to the sample. The final bit is a section of foil from a bottle of bubbly - not strictly paper. It meshed remarkably well. I have decided I MUST compile a sample book and record my own experiments. From this exercise it seems that the more fibrous the paper, the more easily it meshes. No explanation for the foil though.

I liked the look of the tissue paper under organza so I made a sandwich of the foil organza that I used in my last set of experiments. This time I used the wrong side which was silver, but as I worked the needles a little of the colour came to the top. I think this may well become the base for an ATC.

The next set of experiments is based on a polyester (I think; it's certainly not silk) devore fabric. The sheer background is stiff like organza, not soft like the silk in 'real' devore. In the first photo below I have meshed 2 layers together. The piece on the right is the original fabric.

In this photo scraps of the fabric are trapped in a glittery mesh, and on the right meshed with a plain synthetic organza. I do like the effect of 2 layers of organza meshed together. Another couple of ATCs here too I think.