Caroline Marsland took the Wednesday Dupont class through how to watercolour paint a patterned fabric on paper. We were not painting the fabric.
She started off by lightly drawing the general shape of the fabric lightly with pencil. She then painted in the the colour of the fabric first with all of the shadows that are in it. She layered the shadows for best effect and used tissue paper over the wet parts to show texture at times She worked away from the centre with a wet in wet technique. For the really white areas, she suggested using masking fluid. You need to exaggerate the shadows because when you put the pattern in, they will disappear somewhat.
Once the background is dry, she said to very lightly draw in the pattern first with complex patterns but with a simple pattern, she just paints the patters in.
Some suggestions: Remember to sqint, She painted from light to dark to light as needed. 
