It's a goer!!

I did some testing last night and now have a much better idea of where I am heading with my "ball of trees" - am going to have to come up with a better name than that sooner or later.

My chiffon sandwich was a success.  Still have to do a bit more testing to work out exactly what colours work best, and whether to use painted vliesafix or torn pieces (was reading that idea in a book last night - might give a result not as dark as what I got.

What I have decided to go with is a chiffon sandwich (with or without painted vliesafix) in either black or grey chiffon (will try that out tonight), with scraps of red, gold, and bronzy coloured chiffon snipped and sandwiched between (the maroons and greens will come in as I get closer to the tips of the branches).  I'm also going to see how distressed scraps of tulle will look in there as well (heated it with a heat gun - rather than melting like chiffon, it shrinks a little and becomes brittle whichs allows you to break it into jagged little bits - quite a good effect although the smell is horrific!!)

So the sandwich will then be stitched in vertical wavy lines that overlap and mesh together - resembling bark.  Another thing I learnt with my testing was that I need to ensure that the threads I'm using are cotton and not something that will melt (as mine did - forgot to check the bobbin thread and found it was polyester which melted), not a major thing but it will help to maintain the shape to a certain degree.

Before I head the sandwich I'm going to apply the wrapped fending mesh.  The mesh will be wrapped in chiffon and stitched down with a cotton thread.  This way the shiffon will melt in some places but the cotton thread creates a resist (especially if I work some areas more heavily than others).  I will also need to paint the mesh so that I don't get lots of shiny silver bits showing through where the chiffon melts (as in my samples).  That is also something that I have yet to test, what type of paint to use (so it doesn't melt, or break/peel away after it is heated), and what colours to use as it will inevitably show through.  I'm not sure if the heat will have any affect at all as I only have a little heat gun, however I know that renovators quite often use heat to strip paint back so I'll have to check that out.  I figure that a spray paint would be the quickest and easiest method of application - would also give me some interesting stencilled effects on the surface underneath tha might be worth considering.

The last step will be to heat the whole thing.  Still a few questions there too.  I want the mesh on the front and back - do I apply it to each side of the sandwich and then heat?... Or do I apply mesh to one side of the sandwich, heat, then apply another single sided piece to the back?... Or do I make the whole piece wider and fodl it it half, allowing it to become a tube?... (this may create difficulties as I get up into the branches of the tree).

Where to from here?
1. Spray some mesh and test the effect of heat (try normal spray - then perhaps an enamel if this doesn't work)
2. Test the colours of the chiffon sandwich using torn pieces of vliesofix (uncoloured) - grey with flecks of balck, grey, red gold, bronze etc, - black with flecks, - one side black, one side grey. Also try torn/distressed tulle.  If none of these are affective, go back to painted vliesofix and test different coloured paints with different coloured chiffons

3. Test the construction.  A) One chiffon sandwich with mesh on both sides then heated, b) two complete pieces joined after heating, c) two pieces joined, then heated, d) one piece folded in half (tubed) - will also need to test flexability of this and test out methods of dividing or adding on for branches.