Fabric, Shot Cottons, Pepper Cory Collection
Peppered Cottons by Pepper Cory for Studio E. Sold in 1 metre lengths 44/45" wide. Multiple yards cut as one piece.
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"What are Shot Cottons exactly? They're cotton fabrics in which the warp (lengthwise threads) are one color and the weft (side-to-side threads) are a second color. The word 'shot' here means that the shuttle carrying the weft thread is 'shot' (thrown or mechanically moved) across the warp. What's intriguing about shot cottons is their mutability and interesting changeable color. While you'd think a blue warp and a yellow weft might produce green (as we've been taught in art class by mixing blue + yellow) instead the result is a soft green-ish blue. Or blue-ish yellow. You get the idea. The final effect of shot cotton combinations is not always predictable. Viewing shot cotton from different angles give a different look as well.
The home of almost all shot cottons (and shot silks too) is India. Weavers in India have been using the two-color combinations for hundreds of years. When very lightweight threads are used, the resulting shot cottons are used for summer saris, the traditional Indian dress. A sari takes 5-9 yards of fabric so the fabric must be really light.
Probably more than any other point, convincing the Indian weavers to try weaving shot cottons using thicker threads in the hope of producing fabric of a comparable weight to other quilters' fabric was a challenge. But they gave it a try and when we examined the samples, we were delighted.
Here at last are the rich and interesting shades of shot cottons but with the right feel for quilters. With the tactile quality of handwoven fabrics in the quilters familiar weight plus all the beautiful colors made possible by yarn-dying, Peppered Cottons fills a need in the quilters' palette."