Yesterday I pulled the linen and muslin sample piece out of the embroidery hoop and put in a piece of polyester doupioni--backed with muslin of course--and commenced another test of threads and fabric together.
One thing I learned is that making dots *on the fabric* with the yellow Flair pen isn't the best way to go. Probably should have made a tracing on the Sulky Solvy again, in the yellow, and basted it down like with the green linen piece.
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| Whipped chain stitch, the base in green and the whippings in orange |
I read in the archives of Needle n Thread, Ms Corbett's blog, on how she did her lovely book covers. (Two links because she posted on two different book covers. Both lovely!) She used linen cambric for the face fabric. This is a smoother surface, woven from much finer threads than the medium weight linen I have lying around the house. It's still strong stuff! But the surface will lie better under the stitches than something with fatter threads. I'm not sure I can get a fat quarter or so of linen cambric to play with locally. May have to mail-order. I have some handkerchief linen around--not in the sewing stuff--and it's been very good for cleaning eyeglasses with. I wonder if the cambric is more solid than what is sold as handkerchief linen?
It turns out that Ms. Corbett has wondered the same thing. (The link above is to her post discussing it.)
I also found another discussion. This one makes me wonder if it's essentially a fine, plain-weave shirting fabric. They keep saying that cambric is pretty much the same as batiste--and batiste is a very delicate sort of thing. At least, cotton batiste is!
Any readers with an opinion on this, please chime in!
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