- Hannah Smout
- Jan 5, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 10, 2020
There are so many beautiful fabrics at our finger tips but sometimes choosing the right one for a project can be a challenge. Hopefully this blog post will make you a bit more confident when sourcing woven fabrics for your next fabulous creation.
So this is my first blog post and truth be told I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing. However after many months of dipping in and out and working out how you even set up a blog, I think I am finally satisfied with the design and settings and ready to go. And so we come to the first ever blog post!
I started this blog for several reasons, firstly because I wanted to document my progress and what I make. Secondly because I love all things to do with being creative and sewing my own clothes, the fabric and pattern shopping, scrolling through instagram and pinterest looking at incredible makers and designers and of course the actual making and so setting up an instagram account and blog seemed like the ideal way of sharing and engaging with the wonderful sewing cmmunity. And thirdly because sharing resources and knowlege is pretty important so if I find something useful or inspiring, maybe it can help someone else too.
What are woven fabrics?
Let’s start from the beginning, fabrics are made up of fibres. Although the way the fibres are constructed into fabric can determine some of the fabric’s properties, the fibres still hold lots of responsibility for the characteristics of the resulting materials. There are two types of fibres – natural and man-made. Natural fibres include cotton, linen, silk and wool. Man-made or synthetic fibres include polyester, viscose, acrylic.
Woven fabrics are produced on a loom with warp yarns and weft yarns. The warp yarns run vertically and are stretched onto a loom and the weft yarns are woven horizontally under and over the warp yarns. All woven fabrics have a selvedge which is created from the weft yarns looping back. This edge will not fray and is used when cutting out garments to make sure they follow the grain. You will notice that pattern pieces have a grainline or are cut on the fold. If the piece has a grainline, make sure to measure from the selvedge to the grainline at various points to make sure that pattern piece will follow the grain. If the piece needs to be cut on the fold, ensure when the fabric is folded so that both selvedge’s meet. Then you can be sure when you line the pattern piece up with the fold that it will also follow the grain.
The different weaves.
There are three basic weaves, plain, twill and satin. Of course, you may come across other weaves, but these are often variations of the basic three. Plain weave is probably the one you will be most familiar with because if you ever learned to weave at school, this is probably what you did. It involves the weft yarns weaving over and under each warp yarn.
Examples of woven fabrics and their properties:
Cotton – cotton comes from the seed pod of the cotton plant. Cotton is highly versatile, strong, breathable, absorbent and washable. It can be turned into so many different types of fabrics including corduroy, denim, velvet, lawn and twill.
Linen – linen is sourced from the flax plant. It’s more positive characteristics include being strong and absorbent, but it also creases easily unless treated or mixed with another fibre such as viscose. You will usually come across linen for spring and summer wear. I love listening to the 'Love to Sew' podcast and Helen and Caroline recently did a brilliant episode all about linen, so go give that and all their other amazing episodes a listen if you haven't already.
Viscose – viscose is a type of rayon and is made from cellulose. It is breathable, absorbent, smooth, drapes beautifully and blends well with other fibres. Viscose can also be quite low-cost and due to its drape creates some incredible multi-layered swishy dresses, as you may well have seen all over the sewing community on Instagram!
(For more information about these fibres and how to source them more sustainably, please look at common objective https://www.commonobjective.co/hubs/fibres-fabrics ).
Sustainable fabrics
I recently took part in an online course created by Fashion Revolution on the future of fashion, exploring sustainability, and I am now more determined than ever to implement more sustainable practices in my everyday life and help educate people on the awful ethical and environmental practices going on behind the scenes. And as I learn more about the impact fabric production has on our planet, I am eager to find simple more sustainable fabric swaps. There are so many sustainable fabrics I want to try so I can not share an experience of all of them yet, but hopefully over time I will be able to share first-hand experience. If you are looking for some more sustainable options, here are some that I’ve come across.
Tencel – I first came across Tencel when Tilly and the Buttons released the Indigo pattern and I read a blog post about Tilly’s Tencel Indigo. I had never heard of this fibre before and was intrigued when she discussed some of its properties. Since then I have come across more and more Tencel and having brought some myself (to make an indigo actually) and I am sold. I brought a Lady McElroy Tencel lawn (I believe it’s called Sketching All Nations) from Fabric Godmother at the Stitches show and it is one of the softest fabrics in my wardrobe. It is incredibly soft and light, which makes it the dream for summer, and has a lovely drape. I have found that it creases quite easily, so requires a good iron before wearing, but I think that is because it is a lawn, and I expect it would be different for a Tencel twill.
Modal - Modal shares many of the characteristics of Tencel and is soft and breathable. The main difference between them is that Modal is often softer and more delicate. It comes from sustainable wood sources that are harvested from certified and controlled natural forests.
Cupro - Cupro comes from cotton linter, which is usually a waste product in cotton production. It is very fine, breathable and soft. Cupro often has the finish of a silk, making it very comfortable and light to wear.
Meet milk is a fantastic producer of sustainable fabric and create so many interesting textures and weights from sustainably sourced fibres. Some of the sites I've seen seeing meet milk fabric are Lamazi, Sister Mintaka and Sew me sunshine.
There are also some more simple switches you can make when sourcing fabrics. For cotton, look out for organic or recycled cotton. Organic cotton is marked with GOTS (global organic textile standard). I think maybe I need to do more research and do another blog post exploring more sustainable options because they are becoming more accessible.
References and further reading
Want to learn more? These are the books and websites I found useful when writing this blog post.
Reader’s digest - Complete guide to sewing (book)
Common objective https://www.commonobjective.co/hubs/fibres-fabrics
BBC bitesize - it may be for school revision but this page is very useful for explaining the basics of fabric construction - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z6t26yc/revision/2