Lush! When I got started in wearables I had difficulty finding conductive fabrics to play with and use. It was difficult to get anything but ripstop style. Now I’ve found lovely gems like this stretchy silver fabric.
This is a 30 × 30 cm square. Also available in smaller 10 × 10 cm and 20 × 20 cm sizes. Looking for something different? Try our Tulle Mesh Silver fabric or Soft Silver & Cotton fabric.
- Silver fiber — stretchy knit
This knit woven conductive fabric is plated with real silver and super luxe! Use small pieces on the tips of gloves or in any soft circuit situation where you need a bit of stretch. This highly conductive fabric has a resistance of less than 1 ohm per foot in any direction across the textile. It can be used to make soft keypads and capacitive touch sensors, as well as soft “squeeze” switches.
The 100% pure silver fiber fabric contains pure silver and nylon — it is the pure silver ion plating on the nylon.
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Surface resistance: below 1 ohm
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Material: 100% silver fiber
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Type: knitting
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Shielding: RF & LF electromagnetic fields
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Frequency range: 3 MHz to 35 GHz
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Damping: 65–95 dB
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Colour: silver
- Air permeable
⚠️ Iron on medium if necessary, steam ok. When I ironed it I just lightly ran an iron over a small corner to test. Test it first to be sure your temperature is ok. Then only press and lift — don’t leave the heat on for too long. Discolouration can occur over time.
Please note that these are approximate sizes — cut by hand, so slight variations may occur.
If you experiment with this, we’d love to see your project photos!
Care Instructions
Poor water quality will damage silver. In particular, sulphur, high fluoride, and low pH will react strongly with silver and destroy conductivity and shielding performance.
Test your tap water on a small swatch before washing:
- Soak a small fabric swatch in tap water for 1 hour.
- Look for colour change in the water or swatch, especially blackening.
- Air dry the swatch and check for conductivity (touch an ohm meter to 2 points on the fabric).
If colour change or loss of conductivity occurs, do NOT use tap water — use distilled, deionized, or reverse osmosis water instead. Washing will eventually degrade the silver coating and shielding performance. Discolouration over time is normal.
