Silver snowdrop sample

Another sample piece.  You may remember that earlier this year when working on the Apple Tree fire screen I had a go at using Italian tubular mesh wire ribbon but it didn't work at all and I took it off.

This was the right thing to do for that particular project, but it's been at the back of my mind since that there must be something else I could do with it.  This sample piece is an attempt to do just that, so we'll see how it works this time!

The design first.  I'm using a slightly adapted version of a Victorian snowdrop motif I found on the British Library's Flickr site, which is well worth a browse if you have a few days to spare - it's a terrific time sink!  It's also a marvellous resource for out-of-copyright images, so well worth checking out.

Anyway, the snowdrop:

I traced this onto some silver organza:

I've been experimenting with pens, and have opted for ultra-fine Sharpies: they have a very fine nib, they come in lots of colours, and - very importantly for this - they're colour fast and so won't run when I paint over them.  As you can see, I've used a mid-blue for this.

The traced outline:

And painted over with acrylic paint thinned down with water:

It looks grey in the photo, but is silver in real life. It's still stuck to the paper the fabric is pinned to there; it'll be a lot paler once it's removed.

Ready to start sewing!