Searching, I've been searching



 

For the longest I've been searching for a heavy weight silk in widths wider than 44-45 inches without luck.

About a month ago my luck changed.  I was chatting with Tee, one of my Friday Fabs buds,  telling her I was looking for a local source for silk to paint on.  At the back of my mind I knew she , worked  for an Interior Design Company that caters to the Florida  home decorator  market, but the thought of  asking her for help in my search never entered my mind.

Last Friday Tee  handed me a bag of samples of different silk.  All of the pieces were at least 19mm, which is equal to the silk broadcloth I order from Thai Silk and the Silk Connection.   All of the pieces were priced and labeled as being made in  India.  Best of all, all were  between 53-57 inches.  Most were off white or ecru.  A few were too beige and a few were white, perfect.

The sample sizes varied from 6" square to one piece that was 24" x 30", big enough to make something, as are the pieces that were 12" square.  I used one of the piece to paint the pictured below.

If you look closely you can see some slubs (?) scattered through  this piece of fabric, but to my eye they do not distract from the finished piece .  Good thing I am still working on building my inventory for the coming quilt show season.  This gives me the perfect reason to make small pieces to test  how the silks look and handle the watercolor paints. 

I was suppose be in Louisville last Saturday for my friend Kathy A's surprise birthday party.  Since she reads my blog I couldn't  say that when I posted last month.    By sadly I did not go.  Usually flying in and out of Orlando this time of the year is reasonable but for some reason the cost was way more than I wanted to pay for a quick two day visit.  Oh well a phone call to catch up was made.

Kathy, I'll be thinking of you tomorrow.