Fabrics for jewlery

[Sonicera1]

I am starting the furniture for our Native American Gallery and was wondering what a good alternative for fabrics, I have used TestFabrics, Inc in the past but when I went to their website it was not very user friendly. No more images of their products and found it hard to figure things out. Anybody have a good source of museum grade fabrics. The fabric will be used on a slant board with some silver necklaces. I am in New Jersey.

Bruce Rainier

[T. Ashley McGrew]

Hi Bruce,

I don't know the texture you are looking for. If a linen finish is alright you might consider fabric from the mount making supply company Benchmark. It seems that they do "contact" Oddy tests on their products and provide links to read about results.
http://www.benchmarkcatalog.com/collections/case-dressing-fabric

I would add though, that while there have been complaints for many years about the Testfabrics website. I (and many others) have had good experiences when interacting directly with actual human beings there. Tom Klass is very knowledgeable, helpful and is a big fan and supporter of PACCIN (which I personally think indicates excellent judgment!).
tom@testfabrics.com

I would suggest going ahead and getting materials samples from both sources to have on hand. Being able to see and feel the fabric can be very helpful in making design decisions way ahead of time. Good luck. Hope you end up with a great exhibition!

Ashley

[Paul Brewin]

Also, click here (http://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Oddy_Test_Results:_Exhibition_Fabrics)for an updated database of fabrics Oddy tested that's posted by AIC, it has other company references that may be of interest.