Fabric arrives

News just in on "altarcloth.blogspot.com"
The fabric & braids have arrived in a very well wrapped parcel from M Perkins & Son Ltd

Luckily Nigel dropped in to capture the moment on film.

The interlining that will be used is an ancient type of fabric rarely used nowadays called Dowlas.
It was really difficult to find & Perkins & Son seem to be one of the very few suppliers of it.
Even the Broderers guild at Norwich Cathedral couldn't tell me where to find it. In the end I rang the National trusts textile conservation department, who then put me onto the Royal school of needlework.
From Wikipedia's definition...."Dowlas is the name given to a plain cloth, similar to sheeting, but usually coarser. It is made in several qualities, from line warp and weft to two warp and weft, and is used chiefly for aprons, pocketing, soldiers gaiters, linings and overalls. The finer makes are sometimes made into shirts for workmen, and occasionally used for heavy pillow-cases. The word is spelt in many different ways, but the above is the common way of spelling adopted in factories, and it appears in the same form in Shakespeare's First Part of Henry IV, Act III scene 3. The modern dowlas is a good, strong and closely woven linen fabric."


Now the work begins