You know how I love glitter!

And last week, while strolling around the barrio Independencia in Santiago de Chile on a fabric shop crawl with Suzie and her friend Gladys, I was stopped in my tracks by this shiny silver fabric which seems to be mylar bonded to black ripstop nylon.  Now I’m not sure what anyone would do with it – make a stunning windproof jacket perhaps – the guy in the shop just sells the remnant rolls and doesn’t have any info beyond basic fibre composition.  If I lived in Santiago, I’d have bought the minimum cut, which was 2m in that shop, taken it home, played with it and gone back for more if I liked what it did.  Since I was leaving the next morning, I just bought the rest of the bolt, all 8m, as you can’t go wrong  at US$3/m, and brought it home.  I had to hand carry it, no room in my small bag – and it was heavy!  Of course, if there had been gold there too, I’d have bought a major amount of that as well !

This afternoon I played with this exciting fabric, and thought you’d be interested to see the results, all assembled here in this pic:

At the top LH corner is a piece which has had a pink strip inserted and sewn down with silver metallic machine stitching – it buckles quite a bit even on low iron. Beside that is a strip that has been bonded on with Steam’a’Seam 2 – great result, I love it, and did some stitching at the edge – raw edge applique – it could fray in time without that.  or even come loose, of course.

The next sample is  a little go at using it as a bolded corner binding – I’m very pleased with this result, though who knows if I’ll ever use it – but hey, I have plenty, even after having given a little to Suzie and Gladys to play with!

Next is a sliver bonded onto cream nylon organza with fabric folded over it, and silver machine stitching.  Interesting potential.

The next two pics I really like for their potential:

Silver bonded onto black cotton – holds strongly, enhanced with silver stitching.

And in this piece the same shiny silver strips were bonded onto black organza.  It curled a bit, but that’s not necessarily a negative – it could be a lovely effect – and then a layer of black organza was added over the top.  Silver stitching outlines the shapes.  Something made with this kind of construction would meet the technical parameters of  ‘a quilt’.

One thing that has been on my mind is the very large cone of silver thread I’d had kicking around for a while, make that years, to be honest. Psychologically I am drawn to gold first, then other glitter.  I also really hope my expression of interest in the SAQA 25th anniversary exhibition, theme silver, will be successful!  but even if it isn’t – this silver was irresistible, and I am working on ways to include it in some of my works.  Next time I’m up in the US, I’ll look around for a gold equivalent.