I have read about the plastic decorations you can get at the party stores being used for molds. They are cheap.

Thank you, everyone. The pictures are great. I also like the ideas of laying them out on the floor first and doing the paper cutouts to get an idea of how all of this will look. Hanging any type of wall art is always a colossal project with us---differences of opinion on placement and differences in tolerance for things not hanging straight---so anything that will smooth the way on this is greatly appreciated. Thanks, again.

the only way i know to transfer from monitor to paper is , get tracing paper, graph paper, masking tape, pencil , a ruler to measure the monitor and one for the paper and a hard flat surface. tape the graph paper down flat. cut the tracing paper a little larger and tape over the graph paper . you need a point on the image for a reference point to the paper. this point will be at the intersection of the two widest points on the image, one line from top to bottom the other left to right. from that point you can measure to other parts of the image and transfer to scale on the paper. measure enough points so you will feel confident in drawing the curves. when it's done you can cut the tracing paper and use it as a template. it's kind of like doing a dot to dot picture but you must first lay down the dots. if anyone knows of an easier way please send it to me.

Annie, I noticed that lack of knowledge about fabric weaves, also. Batik is not a type of fabric. As most of us know, it is a dying technique. And, batiste, is much too thin to use for this. Given the rest of the ignorance about fabrics, weaves, and fibers that is probably not a misquote. It is also not true that the spaces between fibers are larger in a knit than in a woven. It depends on what fabric is being talked about. Some of these new knits do actually have some pretty large spaces between the fibers. Most of those are synthetic knits and if you wear a pair of pants made out of that fabric, you will feel the wind blow through. All knit is not the same, though. If you have a nice cotton interlock knit, you will not see any light between the fibers, unless, of course your fabric came from an old worn out garment. A cotton interlock knit will also have a bit of fuzziness to the yarns that it is knit from, thus, creating little bits of fuzz that may catch that droplet of contaminated moisture. A synthetic fiber is more like a string of plastic that is smooth and has a slick surface that won't catch or hold anything. A fabric that is really tightly woven is what is called "sheeting". I have seen sheeting fabric on bolts that is dyed in the batik method. It was popular back some years ago. Sheeting cotton is so hard and tight that the sewing machine needle needs to be really sharp to pierce it and sometimes multiple layers of it can be really hard to sew. You may need a thimble to even get a hand needle through it. It is possible that this experiment used a piece of batik dyed cotton and that cotton fabric happened be a sheeting fabric. I never understood why it is said that this is a good fabric to use as quilt backing. It may be sturdy , but it is so hard to get a hand needle through. A cotton muslin would be a better choice for running quilting stitches through. I am not sure how sheeting differs from a percale. A tight percale might be a good substitute. It might even be classified as a percale. I don't know. But, I do know that it is some tight and tough stuff without being bulky. I have some in my mask making arsenal and have been sewing on it and through it the last few days. The sewing machine needle will let you know when you hit a piece of sheeting fabric. I think that this researcher, or this person who wrote about it, did not know anything substantial about fabric, weaves, knits or fibers. This is very unhelpful information. Also, there is not really anything that is designated as heavyweight quilters cotton. Most cotton that is sold for piecing at places like Joanns is pretty poor cheap cotton, with a few minor exceptions. Good quality cotton that is sold in speciality stores is not better quality because it is "heavier". It is good quality because it is made of longer staple cotton fibers that make the fabric nicer. Being "heavy" is not a quality that you want when piecing.