Welcome to Cute. I use ordinary card and it works well. Just keep it simple.
Thanks for asking I have been wondering about this myself.
Thanks for asking the question, I also was curious.
I thought of just using fabric and gluing it on the paper but now I don't have to.
My dealer just had a class on this last week. They said the more "fabric like" the paper is the better. So they recommended mulberry and handmade paper first. But also said you can use regular card stock. They recommend using a stabilizer behind the paper. I was surprised by this, but it seems to work fine. Lastly, the design needs to be low in stitch count. Redwork designs or color work designs are excellent choices.
I hope you have a lot of fun with this! Be sure to post pictures in projects!
Use a simple design and try it! It is a quick and cheap experiment. I like handmade paper, but I've also used paper doilies.
There are some companies out there that sell paper specific to embroidery, but I will tell you my personal experience....I have used handmade paper, yes, even the type with flower embedded, I just made sure that the design was not going to impale the flowers too many times. I have also used plain cardstock....I will tell you to not use a thread heavy design. I bought some from Em Lib that were for cards and although they worked they were awfully heavy on the thread and I left out some of the shading as I was afraid of punching out the paper completely. So I like to keep it simple and by doing that with my personal experience I use most any fiber.........Vicki
ttt I would like to know this answer also. I have seen mulberry paper used for designs but I think that there are other types of paper.<br />Hugs Dawn