I’m still working on the silver fish panel and have accidentally come up with a way to solve a lot of the technical problems that have been plaguing me. Following Cherri’s instructions I started sticking the Mylar to the fabric with tape to hold it steady before embroidering, when I suddenly had a brain wave and stuck a layer of Sellotape (or Scotch tape in American) to the back of the Mylar before stitching it on to the background fabric. This really improved things. It made the film a lot more robust and a lot easier to handle, and it stopped it rucking up and wrinkling when it was placed on the fabric. Best of all, the film was no longer cut through by overstitching
Large areas of unsupported Mylar, but the stitching doesn't cut through it
So then it occurred to me that the same trick might work with the gold leaf, so I tried it and it was just as good. The taped foil was strong and easy to handle, and there was no need to glue it to the fabric. And best of all, there were no little flakes of metal drifting about
The top fish is made with tape-supported Mylar and the bottom one with tape-supported gold leaf
I’m now contemplating using double-sided tape, so that the film or the leaf can be stuck to the fabric and make things even easier
It’s true that the taped Mylar or leaf might not stand up well to washing. but that doesn’t matter for this project, because the fish panel will be mounted and not worn. Still, I’ll do a test piece and throw it in the washing machine to see what happens