Friday, May 25, 2012

Shot cotton ... or what?

I'm working on a wall-hanging.  The central part of the wall-hanging is a pre-printed panel that has an entire palette of beige/gold/brown tones.

One part of the wall-hanging is a small border I'm putting around the panel.  The fabric I'm using for the border was gifted to me by a fellow quilter who was de-stashing. 

The stuff is *gorgeous*.  I think it's a shot cotton.  It's made of an incredibly VIBRANT yellow in one direction (think neon) and a clear red in the other.  I know that Kaffe Fassett has a line of shot cottons, but I have no idea if this is one of his. 

From the Quilting Board forum, I found that "Shot cotton is special because the warp and weft yarns are 2 different colors woven together to create a special depth, a "shot" of color. When the edge of this fabric ravels, you can see a bright contrast to the body of the fabric."

This particular fabric is very lightweight and drapeable.  The yellow fiber feels as though it might be silk.  It snags on EVERYTHING .... rough spots on my fingers, other fabric and even itself!  It doesn't look like a woven thread; it's more like it's been drawn out than spun. 

I did a burn test on it.  It left soft ash.  It's certainly not polyester.  It caught on fire immediately although it didn't continue to burn.

The red fiber is definitely a spun fiber.  Very tight and straight.  It had the same burn test results as the yellow stuff.

The fabric might be a silk-cotton combination or not.  Whatever it is, it sure is pretty! :-)

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