Making the Canvas

My mom helped me prepare my project canvas.  I ordered folded, not primed, medium duck. It measured as 12'x 18'. It didn't come as a role, it came as a big folded thing inside a giant zip-lock bag in a box . I asked my church if they would let me use one of the large auditoriums to do the work, to which they said yes.  First,   We cut it to size, which was not easy.  It was so difficult because of its size and because it was not a perfect rectangle to begin with.  Then we ironed it.  It was very hard to smooth out. I was actually getting concerned at one point that  I would warp the cut piece, especially considering the steam from our irons.  After that was done, we folded over the edges and ironed in fusing tape.  Fusing tape, when melted, gets into the fibers of the canvas and fuses everything together.  After that, we flipped the canvas over  to prime.  I had us use palette knives to do this (as if we were laying plaster).  We started in the middle and worked our way out.  This was also a difficult because the canvas mysteriously shrunk when we put the gesso on it.  So, unless I wanted a weird ripply surface, we really had to start in the middle.  Unfortuneately, we ran out of primer, so we couldn't finnish.  I now have more primer, so within the next week, I will be completeing the first coat of primer.  If i have enough when I'm done, I will knife on another thick layer for extra support.  I have decided to hang it unstreched via intustrial Velcro.