Has Anyone Try to Pierce Using Chinese Silk Fabric?

[Jenny C.]

I am a beginner in the quilting world. It looks like all the quilts I have encountered are made from cotton, woven yarn and maybe wool. Has anyone try to pierce using Chinese silk?

[Jenny C.]

I am a beginner in the quilting world. It looks like all the quilts I have encountered are made from cotton, woven yarn and maybe wool. Has anyone try to pierce using Chinese silk?

I have not tried this but I have worked with specialty fabrics in other things and the advice I would give is this: if the fabric is loosely woven you may want to back it with a very light weight fusible interfacing. If it is tightly woven, you shouldn't have a problem but you are going to have to test your needles to see which one works best on it(you don't want to snag that beautiful fabric!).

[Hannelore N.]

A lot of silks fray very easily so they need to be handled gently. You also need to do some test seams with different threads in order to see which one produces the best results.

There are a lot of gorgeous Chinese silks available, from very lightweight fabrics that don't crease, drape beautifully, but are slippery as live eels, to the heavy woven brocades.

The brocades are brilliant for evening clutch bags.

I felt slightly guilty when I bought quite a lot of silks during my one and only visit to Hongkong and mainland China. But I have never regretted it. They are slowly getting used. I keep saying to myself that I should save up for another trip and go when I have run out of these fabrics.

Lorchen