sewing a movie theatre curtain

[Susan Brookes <sbrookes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wonder if you could help me with some information.

I am part of the North Shore Embroiderer's Guild here, and a group of us 
have been asked to advise the Auckland City Council on the replication of a 
theatre curtain.  We will almost certainly be asked to do the actual 
replication as well.

The curtain was made in 1923 for the Civic Theatre.  The theatre is an 
'eastern' extravaganza with golden elephants, a ceiling with twinkling 
stars and drifting clouds, panthers with glowing eyes.  It was a wonderful 
1920s movie theatre, dance venue and live theatre.  It has since fallen on 
hard times, but luckily was not demolished in the 60s or 70s.  The Auckland 
City Council has completely refurbished it as part of their Millenium 
activities.

One of the things they have not done yet is the curtain.  The original was 
sold in the mid 70s, but is still available for study, although pieces have 
been cut off it.  It is on cotton velvet, and measures about 13mx10m.  It 
was always hung straight, on a flat.  It depicts flamingos in a lake, with 
trees and bushes on either side. The shapes that form these are of various 
fabrics - flannel, silk, velvet etc -, some of them have been painted, and 
are appliqued onto the  velvet curtain.  There is never more than two 
layers of fabric (1 of curtain, and 1 of applied fabric).  There is brown 
paper between the shapes and the velvet.  The shapes are applied by what 
looks like a machine made chain stitch (chain on top, straight stitch 
underneath), worked around the edge of the pieces in a

It is quite irregular.

We would be most grateful if you could help us answer our questions, which 
are:
is it likely that the chain stitch was machine made, and what sort of 
machine would have been used?
we think that the brown paper was used as a pattern to cut the fabric 
shapes.  We think that it was glued to the fabric, cut around, glued to the 
curtain in position, then sewn around.  It has been suggested that shellac 
might have been used as glue.  Is shellac a suitable glue, or are there 
better modern equivalents?
what sort of a sewing machine can reach about 2 metres into the centre of 
fabric.  I have approached sail makers, but the 'throats' of their machines 
are only 1 metre, and we do not wish to 'screw up' the velvet to fit it 
into this width.

If you cannot help, can you suggest anywhere else I could ask.


Regards
Susan Brookes
Business Information Service
Auckland City Libraries
P O Box 4138, Auckland, New Zealand
Phone: (09) 307 7754 Fax: (09) 307 7791
Email: sbrookes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx