I love to use metallic fabrics in my quilts. I think in the right places it makes a huge impact. I can’t always find a good metallic in quilting cotton, soooo I go to the garment department :)
Here's a quilt I made with a gold metallic swimsuit knit! That’s right, I found a swimsuit spandex/knit in a fantastic antique gold color and just had to see if I could get it to work.
I used the lightest weight fusible stabilizer (featherweight) and pressed it to the back of a large piece of the knit. Use a lot of steam so the metallic doesn’t melt, you may even want to use a pressing cloth or a piece of muslin to shield the fabric a bit more. Notice the little glue dots on the fusible; you’ll want to keep pressing until those disappear. That means they have melted to the fabric and the stabilizer will not peel off.
Once the fusible is pressed across the whole piece, you can cut your pieces like you would with any other fabric. Here I have cut some triangles to use in a star block.
I am mixing my stabilized metallic knit pieces with regular quilting cotton pieces. And in this case, as long as I kept the knit pieces on the top during piecing it went together beautifully!
Here's a quilt where I used another unconventional metallic fabric… satin.
I prepped the satin in the same way, as the knit, with the lightest weight fusible and then cut strips from the stabilized satin. Now, I can piece it between regular quilting cotton with no problem at all!
One more way to use unconventional fabric that makes the coziest quilts is to use sweatshirt knit as the backing.
This knit is heavier than Jersey knit, and it adds a little weight in a good drapey way to quilts making them very cuddle friendly. I first used sweatshirt knit in place of batting some years ago. I liked the feel of that quilt so much, now I buy it in whatever colors I can find, and it goes on the back of my favorite quilts.
I guess the moral of the story is, don’t be afraid to try something a little unorthodox. You might really like the outcome!
Happy Sunday everyone,
Krista