Sewing Basics, Part Two: Know Your Fabrics

   This one will not be as short and simple as the needles. There's just so many fabrics out there. I'll just be touching on some key points that those of you with less experience might find helpful. As the blog develops, I'll go in to more detail about the fabrics I use in my costume and clothing designs. Knowing your fabrics requires a lot of time and practice. In an ideal world, we would know exactly what the make-up of every fabric was. However, if you're anything like me, and often receive gifts of fabric, shop garage and estate sales for fabric, upcycle things people have cut tags from, etc... well, then you are going to run in to a lot of times where you just have to "best guess". A good way to start working on honing that skill is pretty simple: read your clothing tags every day before you put them on, and get a feel for that particular fabric. You're looking for the part of the tag that gives you composition of the material. Now you are building an association in your brain between what it is, and how it looks, feels, and acts. Luckily, when you are out fabric shopping and have access to the bolts, you can usually see right then and there what a fabric is made of on the end of the bolt.

Fabric content is listed on the tags of clothing items

This is the usual information you can get looking at the end of a fabric bolt. Width of fabric (not shown) is also often listed.

 

   Below is a little bit of basic knowledge about fabrics you need to get started being more familiar with fabric composition.  Fabrics can be natural, synthetic, or a blend. What are they made of, and how are they different? Knowing what you have can make a lot of difference in how your end product will look and behave.

some of the most important differences in synthetic and natural fabrics.

 Second to composition of the fabric, is the structure. Is it woven or is it knit? These will behave differently, and require different tools and techniques to get quality results. Tools and techniques for specific fabrics will be in future posts. For know we are focusing on identification.

Easy ways to check what type of fabric you have.

 Common fabric terms to know:

• With the grain: this is an important thing to understand about fabric. A grain is a line that runs horizontal or vertical on your fabric. You need to pay attention to this because things cut on the grain hold their shape better, and if a pattern maker suggests cutting on the grain, it is to help with the structural look of the finished piece. 
• Nap: this is for things like velvet and faux fur, and it refers to the way in which the fibers face. You need to pay attention to that so you don't have half of your garment sewn with obvious fibers going the wrong directions in some places. 
• On the bias: this means a diagonal cut on your fabric. Things cut on the bias tend to fray less, stretch a little,  and drape more softly.
• Selvage: the manufacturer's edge on the fabric, running the length of the fabric. These have usually been woven or treated not to curl or fray, and therefor might have a different feeling and appearance than the rest of your fabric. be careful when cutting your pattern or you might get too close to the selvage, and have a weird looking spot on your finished product.
•  If you want to know more of the lingo, you can have a look at this glossary of textile terms on Wikipedia. I'll be straight with you, there are words on there *I* have never even heard of! Learning every day!

 

   Well, I hope you learned at least a little bit from all this! I try very hard to make sense most days!... but I am not always successful! lol There will be more in this series ahead. In part three I will cover different thread types. Please feel free to ask me a question or send me a suggestion about things you'd like to learn!