--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: <snip Failing that, any silk that is weighted at less than your average dupion would be ok. Probably the best thing to do is to go to a fabric merchant or shop, and explain that it needs to be quite lightweight, but not sheer, have a plain weave, and be very strong (I always find that explaineing the properties it needs is much better than explaining what it's for - people tend to look blank and say 'eh?' when I do the latter).
Debs <snip Well, I'm not sure about the strong part, exactly, but plain silk taffeta ( not the heavy satin-backed type ) answers the description otherwise. Our groups' banner is made out of silk taffeta. It is big - approx. 5 x 6 foot - but despite its size is reasonably light and easy to handle, so a banner the size you are talking about would handle very nicely. The fabric is also light enough to billow very nicely in the breeze. By the by, we aren't particularly gentle with our banner, and it is holding up pretty well after 5 odd years. The taffeta was washed, thrown in the dryer, ironed, hemmed and then painted with fabric paint - at this distance in time, I can't remember if was especially silk fabric paint or just ordinary fabric paint. One thing to remember though, if you are going to paint your design on it, the paint will partially come through to the other side with taffeta of this weight, so you need to paint both sides. ( Put something under the taffeta when you paint it: the house we were living in at the time ended up with a most interesting pattern in black on one of the outside walls. It went well with the arrow hole. ;-P ) Here are some links to pictures which have our banner in them ( please forgive the heavy pike content, the photographer wasn't to know that the banner would end up being the star ). http://www.flickr.com/photos/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/93136496/ - billowing nicely, Tes ( the ensign )is having to hold his hat on, I just noticed http://www.flickr.com/photos/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/93136497/ - billowing in a differrent direction ( it must have been a windy day ) http://www.flickr.com/photos/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/93136500/ - this one is to give you an idea of the size of the banner. Tes is about 6'1" or 2" tall. HTH. Joannah. _____________________________________________________________ Sluggy.Net: The Sluggy Freelance Community! _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
