hot summer night

We are in the 9th day of 90+ heat with no rain in sight. The cats have been testy, the wildlife a bit wilder and the thought of jockeying large pieces around to reshoot for an show entry is enough to cause a swoon and call for a two hour pool break.

I started this last night as a sampler to see how various fabrics and threads worked over a new base material that I have acres of. It's a synthetic - think light weight mattress pads.

I've always worked with W+N cotton batting but with the antique,open weave fabrics and heavy weight cotton thread, shreds of batting were getting dragged to the surface of the cloth. not nice.

This new stuff has little drape which bodes well for the some larger pirate flags in the sketchbook and it turns out to be a dream to stitch by hand or machine. I'll go on with this one and see where it takes me. So far these are vintage cotton lawn and damask  over a piece of that luxury cloth which took the dye so well.