Besides a splurge on hoops I’ve also been splashing out on fabrics. The immediate reason for this was my goldwork boot. This was stitched on a dusty pink fabric which was lovely and soft, quite densely woven but with a good drape. As my sketches for a goldwork parasol began to take shape, I started thinking of the sort of fabric I’d like to stitch it on; and I decided I’d like to stitch it on the sort of fabric that came in the boot kit.

With the kind help of the Royal School of Needlework I contacted Angela Bishop, who taught the boot day class. She replied very promptly but was unfortunately unable to help as it was a fabric from her stash, sourced from the remnants box at a fabric shop. She must have a lovely fabric shop!

Doing some research in my own local fabric shop and online, one of the things that became clear was that the fabric I was looking for was heavier than quilting/patchwork cotton. But what is the weight of quilting cotton? Most websites I looked at simply called it “medium weight”. Eventually I found that this apparently meant somewhere between 140 and 160gsm (grams per square metre), while a fabric described as “medium-to-heavy” was 200gsm, and I’d already found out earlier that my heavy-weight calico is 208gsm. On the whole it looked like I should aim for something between 200 and 240gsm, or described as either medium-to-heavy or heavy.

I found that in Essex linen. I’m not sure why it is called Essex linen as it doesn’t seem to have any clear connection with the county, and it is in fact not linen but a linen/cotton mix. Never mind, it’s 200gsm, comes in some very pretty colours (though not the dark dusty pink of the boot), and judging by the online pictures it looked not quite identical but definitely similar to the boot kit fabric, so I got a few colours to try out – including a bright but unusually cool shade of orange which I probably wouldn’t have bought if it hadn’t been half price, and just enough to push me over the free postage limit, which meant I effectively got the fat quarter for 30p.

So having seen and touched them in real life, are they like the boot fabric? Well, not quite. They don’t feel quite as soft, or as dense. But they will make a very nice background for goldwork projects, or other freestyle embroidery for that matter, so I’m pleased with my purchase.

Then there were two other fabrics which I’d bookmarked on eBay some time ago when I was looking for a heavier cotton fabric to use in the Shisha and freestyle workshops, hoping to do away with the need for backing fabric. One of these was confusingly called “cotton heavy canvas” in the title and “medium weight cotton canvas” in the description. I rang the company and asked whether they knew the weight of the fabric, but they said they didn’t class their fabrics by gsm weight; they assured me, however, that it was heavier than quilting cotton. On the grounds that I would be able to use it anyway, be it with or without backing fabric, I ordered a metre. It arrived yesterday, and it’s an interesting fabric – it’s a relatively coarse weave, quite dense, and up close it almost looks like a counted evenweave fabric with less noticeable holes. It’s definitely thick enough to use without backing, and as a result transferring designs of any complexity will need more than just window with good daylight, it’ll need the lightbox; I think I could just about transfer the Shisha Flower without it, but not something like the Little Wildflower Garden. The picture shows this cotton canvas side by side with my usual fabric for these designs, a pale blue quilting cotton – as you can see the latter is a much finer weave; it is also much thinner, but that may not be so obvious from the picture. As for the colour, the cotton canvas seems to have a definite hint of turquoise (again, not so noticeable in the picture) which is surprising considering that the shade I bought was called Pale Blue.

The other fabric I looked at was cotton duck (irrelevant but interesting snippet of information: the “duck” in cotton duck apparently comes from the Dutch word “doek”, or “cloth”). According to Wikipedia, the lightest duck is no. 12, which weighs 7 oz per 36 by 22 inches – no doubt a useful way of measuring its weight when introduced by the Cotton Duck Association (I wonder if they are affiliated with the Rubber Duck Association), but not of any great help to me. Fortunately Wikipedia helpfully converts this into more modern terms, informing me that 7 oz per 36 by 22 inches equates to 390gsm. A slightly alarming result, as this is rather heavier than the piece I ordered from eBay was described to be: “approx. 7oz per square yard or 240 gsm”. I may just have to cut it down to a square yard or a square metre and weigh it! Anyway, it too arrived yesterday, and is equally interesting. A dense fabric with a slightly softer feel than the cotton canvas, it will likewise need the lightbox for any detailed transferring. The weave is not nearly so visible as on the cotton canvas, and I wonder whether that will make accurate placement of the stitches easier. It looks like a nice, neutral background for freestyle stitching, with just enough texture not to look bland or flat.

Later today I’ll transfer the Little Wildflower Garden to both fabrics, and I’ll let you know how they stitch up!