making impressions 1

 I've made progress with my idea of making paper impressions from the christening gown -

first attempts were using watercolour paper and a book press, but these were disappointingly shallow and lacked definition

then I remembered using paper pulp to make impressions so that was the basis for the second round – I tried two methods with small squares (mostly) of pulp which had been lightly pressed to expel surplus water, while still leaving it soft for taking the impression: one batch were put in the press, but I was impatient to get results so I tried another small batch with a printing roller applied directly to the fabric/lace on pulp

the roller method gave much better results than the first attempts on watercolour paper – I used the gown itself for these, as I did not want to subject it to the press until I had a technique I am happy with 

ideally I would like the gathering to be a bit clearer

the press samples of lace came out really well: sharp and clear with good detail

so the next stage is to work out how the prepare the gown for the press process