using & caring for silver every day

A couple of years ago, I decided I wasn&#;t going to keep my pretty things hidden in cabinets and drawers.  I was going to either use them or let them go.  Since I didn&#;t want to get rid of it, I decided I would use the silver pattern I inherited from my mom, Oma, and both great-grandmothers as our everyday flatware.

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There are moments when I cringe at how expensive each piece is, but then I remember that is all the more reason to use it.

We use it just like any other flatware, but we do have two &#;rules&#;.

#1 &#; We wash it by hand most of the time.  

It can go in the dishwasher, but there is some debate as to whether that will affect the finish over time, so I would just rather be safe.  We have other things we hand-wash, like our pots, pans, sharp knives, etc., so it&#;s not a big deal to wash the flatware, too.  It does go in the dishwasher sometimes, but I think it&#;s what we do most of the time that matters.

#2 &#; We don&#;t take them outside of the house.  

I eat on-the-go more than anyone else in the family, so this rule mostly applies to me.  I keep a stash of plastic forks and spoons to take with me, so one of our pieces of silver doesn&#;t inadvertently get left somewhere.  So, obviously, I don&#;t put the flatware in the boys&#; packed lunches.

Because we use them every day, they don&#;t need to be polished very often.  They need a little touch-up maybe once a year.

The fork tines seem to show the most tarnish.  For those, I use Goddard&#;s Silver Dip.

This isn&#;t a sponsored post, but I can say that it&#;s the most magical silver cleaner for flatware that I&#;ve used.  I don&#;t know how it works on pieces that are really tarnished, but for some moderate discoloration, you just dip it in for a couple of seconds, lift it out, and it&#;s perfectly shiny.

You can really see how discolored your flatware is when you put one that is polished against one that isn&#;t.

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Since it&#;s just a small container, I used it only for fork tines and spoons.  (Spoon heads?  Spoon bowls?  Not sure what that part of the spoon is called.)

For knives and large pieces, I use Goddard&#;s Silver Foam.  This takes a little more elbow grease, but it cleans pieces nicely and it doesn&#;t scratch the silver.

I don&#;t love polishing silver, but as I said, I only need to do it about once a year, so it&#;s worth it to me.

And, as I&#;m polishing, it reminds me of the women I inherited these pieces from.  My Oma, particularly.  She was not much of a housekeeper, but she loved polishing her silver.  My mom would laugh as she told me, &#;The entire house could be a mess, but Oma would sit there polishing the silver.&#;

As I always do with these posts, I want to encourage you to use &#;the good stuff&#; every day.  If you don&#;t have any family or wedding sterling or silver plate, find a pattern you like and start collecting it piece by piece from antique stores, eBay, Etsy, estate sales, etc.

Oh, and since I&#;m always asked, my pattern is Repousse by Kirk Stieff, but I also have some pieces of Chrysanthemum mixed in (like the ornate spoons photographed above.)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

The fabrics with electromagnetic interference (EMI) have been used in various fields. However, most studies related to the EMI fabrics focused on the improvement of the final electromagnetic shielding effectiveness (EM SE) by adjusting the preparation parameters while the breathability of the EMI fabrics was affected and the visible surficial patterns on the EMI fabric was limited. In this work, the two samples based on the Song Brocade structure were fabricated with surficial visible pattern &#;&#;&#;. One was fabricated with silver-plated polyamide (Ag-PA) yarns and the silk yarns, the another with polyester (PET) yarns and the silk yarns. The weaving structure of the two samples were investigated by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) and laser optical microscopy (LOM). The resistance against the EM radiation near field communication (NFC) and the ultraviolet (UV) light was also evaluated. Besides, the surface resistance, the air permeability and the water evaporation rate were investigated. The results revealed that the &#;&#;&#; appeared successfully on the surface of the two samples with stable weaving structure. The Ag-PA yarn-incorporated Song Brocade fabric had the EMI shielding effectiveness value around 50 dB, which was supported by the low surface resistance less than 40 Ω. The excellent NFC shielding of the Ag-PA yarn-incorporated Song Brocade was also found. The ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) value of the Ag-PA yarn-incorporated Song Brocade fabric was higher than 190. The air permeability and the evaporation rate of the Ag-PA yarn-incorporated Song Brocade fabric was higher than 99 mm/s, and 1.4 g/h, respectively. As a result, the Ag-PA yarn-incorporated Song Brocade fabrics were proposed for both the personal and the industrial scale utilization.

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of the electronic communication technology, the electronic devices became common in the daily life. Along with the development of the electronic communication, the electromagnetic (EM) radiation generated by the ubiquitous electronic devices also has a negative effect on the human life [1]. The long-term exposure to EM radiation could endanger people&#;s health [2,3]. It was revealed that the various slight or serious negative effects on the human body have been investigated when someone has been near the mobile base station for a certain time. Additionally, the personal information stored, e.g., in credit cards and other electronic cards may be stolen by using near field communication (NFC) technology, which is based on the EM radiation [4,5,6,7]. To protect electrical equipment and human body from these damages, the fabrics with enhanced electromagnetic interference (EMI) have provided a solution. These fabrics were usually realized by incorporating the metal materials into the fabrics [8,9]. Shielding of EM waves was here achieved by the absorption and reflection of EM radiation in the metal-incorporated fabrics [10,11].

Various methods have been used for the preparation of metal-incorporated fabrics to enhance the EM shielding effectiveness (SE), including the coating method (dip coating, the sputtering coating, the electroless plating&#;) and the weaving technology by using conductive yarns [12,13,14,15,16]. Both the dip coating and the sputtering coating were convenient to prepare the EMI fabrics. The electroless plating technology was realized based on the autocatalytic deposition and simultaneous reduction where the metal ions in the bath were reduced with the catalyst and was suitable for the preparation of the ultralight EMI fabric [17,18,19]. However, the coating technology altered surface chemistry and permeability of the fabric [20]. The friction loss was also the factor affecting the lifetime coated fabric for EMI, which strongly depended on the bonding between the metal materials and the fibers. Furthermore, the surficial patterns of the metal-incorporated fabrics with EMI realized via the surface coating methods was significantly altered when compared with the uncoated fabrics, which strongly limited such metal-incorporated fabrics for the industry rather than the daily use. Besides, the moisture content in the room condition was also a factor to affect the stability of EMI fabric [21]. Opposing to the various coating methods, the weaving method by using conductive yarns to prepare the EMI fabrics could provide a series solution for the problems. However, various research work focused on the effect of the porosity, thickness, yarns type and layers of the EMI fabrics on the final EM SE [9,22,23,24,25,26,27]. It was also concluded that the fabrics with conductive yarns were woven with basic structure, like plain, twill, honeycomb, end satin etc. Since the fabric structure was simple, the visible surficial patterns of the EMI fabrics were limited, which had less attraction for the customers. To date, there have been a few reports related to the complicated patterns on the metal-incorporated fabrics.

The Song Brocade fabric was based on the unique structure, which arose from the Song Dynasty of China [28,29]. The main materials for the Song Brocade fabric were the mulberry silk [30]. The Song Brocade fabric was mainly fabricated based on the two traditional types of weaving [29]. The weave of Song Brocade was weft backed, from two groups of warp and multiple groups of wefts. In details, one group was called the ground warp, which was made of refined and dyed mulberry silk, and the other group was called the face warp, which was usually made of a fine single raw silk. The ratio of the ground warp and face warp was mostly 3, and sometimes the ratio could be 2, 4, 6 etc. [31]. Compared with the basic fabric structure, various patterns of the Song Brocade fabrics could be prepared by adjusting the number of the weaving cycles, including the pattern of &#;key brick&#;, &#;swastika&#;, and &#;shou&#; etc. From this point of view, the weaving of the Song Brocade fabric by using the metal-incorporated yarns was the prospective alternative for the EMI fabrics.

In this work, two Song Brocade fabrics were successfully prepared. One was the Song fabrics woven by using the polyester (PET) yarns and the silk yarns, and the other one was woven by using the silver-plated polyamide (Ag-PA) yarns and the silk yarns. Two fabrics were fabricated with the same weaving structure where the &#;swastika&#; (&#;) appeared as the surficial pattern. The structure similarity of the surficial patterns of both samples were investigated via Python software [32]. The EMI property and the ultraviolet (UV) shielding of both samples were evaluated. The surface resistance of both samples was also measured. Besides, the air permeability and the textile moisture evaporation rate of samples were measured.

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