It was then a very easy task to gently roll the seam open and finish drying the tea bag filter paper.
The tea bag filter paper is usually made of abaca, the leaf stalk of a banana plant from the Philippines, in case you were wondering.
After gently rubbing with my fingers to remove any of the tiny remaining tea leaf remnants on the paper, I pressed the paper flat with a warm iron, and finally was able to get to work.
I tried a few items to draw on the fabric...I watched a YT video where a pen and ink was used, but I didn't have any sepia ink and the nib seemed rather prone to tear the fine fabric. I tried a softish lead pencil but ended up using my SU markers (the fine tip), with very good effect.
I drew lines with these, and coloured gently with my watercolour paints, adhered them onto paper mats and then onto kraft card bases which seemed to me to suit the colours best.
Many thanks to Ruth, who asked me about stamping on this fabric...I had forgotten to add that I did try stamping. I found that the inks were very variable in effect, that sentiment fonts needed to be quite clear...ornate fonts get a bit lost. Maybe if you have a MISTI and can repeat stamp then it would be fine, but I don't, and besides, I prefer the more organic look to these papers I was able to obtain by using pens and paint...also, it would depend a bit on the colour of the filter paper, mine were very dark and the inks seemed quite dull when I stamped on it. I guess you would need to try yourself, to see what works best for you.
The matting paper I used was all lovely pieces of variously coloured creamish free endpapers, or blanks or fly papers depending on your degree of pedantry, from a few books I am recycling. It is nice to find a use for these luscious papers...
Tea bags are quite easy to find, after all...you are recycling something from the compost bin and it can still move on to that destination if the colouring exercise fails badly!
I knew wet glue would simply bleed through the fibre and alter the surface appearance...I tried double sided tape with reasonable results.
When I simply used a thin strip around the perimeter of the fabric, it adhered well and was not too noticeable, but the centre of the fabric piece ballooned a little...
Next, I tried covering the whole of back of the next piece with tape, but after adhering it down onto the mat, the several lines of tape were quite visible...
Finally I remembered my little used can of spray adhesive, and this worked a treat...it seems to have adhered well (two days on), and does not show at all on the finished piece.
A lot of fun, but I fear, limited in range and interest for me...I hope I have now got these out of my head...I need the space for other things! ;)
I must get a card into the post for a couple of missed birthdays in the past week or so, I have been feeling a little off colour and so have been really slack...not good enough!
Bye now,
Di