Picking The Right Fabric
Discover the worlds greatest hobby. Not only is sewing exceedingly practical, it is also relaxing, personally satisfying, and creatively expressive. Sewing stands alone as a hobby derived from millenniums of necessity and work. The invention of the sewing machine and subsequent improvements transformed much of the world. While the textile industry has largely relocated to Asia, the creativity and expressive possibilities have become a modern passion.
Modern sewing is blessed with amazing computerized creative machines with loads of convenience and productivity features. The possibilities have become almost endless. Whatever you can imagine, you can create. Clothing construction, home decorating, heirloom projects, crafts, quilting, embellishing, and embroidery have become so easy that millions are engaged in this expanding hobby.
A vast array of modern threads, notions, fabrics, colors, and textures give the sewing hobbyist huge creative possibilities.
One of the challenges creative sewing hobbyists faced, is choosing the right combination of fabrics, colors, and textures. The options are so great, that sorting through the choices is often very difficult. As a result, the following list of tips is provided.
Tip One: Consider the advice available to you. Too often we try to make our own choices without considering what the experts say. You can save loads of frustration by asking experts, teachers, and trusted friends for their advice. Reading the backs of patterns can shortcut the decision making process. While all advice is not equal, you are still in control. Use your own common sense, after getting all the suggestions you need.
Tip Two: Choose Quality. The quality of your finished project depends largely on the quality of the materials used to make the project. Often people buy based on price alone, and end up disappointed when the fabric is low quality. Therefore, always use the best quality materials you can afford relative to your project.
Tip Three: Factors To Consider. The quality and character of fabric depends greatly on the base fabric. Often the same fabric print will be produced on different greygood qualities. The fabric count can very greatly with low quality fabrics using very low thread count per inch, and top quality fabrics using high thread counts. Fabric may look the same at first glance, but be very different in real quality.
Tip Four: Educate yourself to recognize fabric quality. You can get help from sewing books, classes, sewing teachers, and fellow sewers. Price is not necessarily the best indicator. Therefore, you need to be able to identify the quality of fabric for yourself.
Tip Five: Use these six tests: touch, light, fray, grain, stretch, scrunch. The touch test examines how the fabric feels when you touch it. The light test is done by holding the fabric up to the light and looking for its density and thread count. The fray check examines the cut edges of the fabric for stray or loose threads. The grain test inspects the grain, cross grain, and bias. The stretch test explores the ability of the fabric to retain its shape. The scrunch test is used to identify the tendency of the fabric to wrinkle or not. Tip Six: To examine the quality of fabric use your senses. Touch it, look at it up to the light, examine the weave, stretch it to see if it retains its shape, and scrunch up the fabric to see if it tends to wrinkle or not.
Tip Seven: Labels on the end of the bolt will often identify the composition of the fabric as well as recommendations for its care.
Tip Eight: Use lots of cotton fabrics. Certainly cottons are the most popular fabric today offering huge variety in color and print. Sewers love them for all types of sewing. Since cotton is a natural fiber, it does have a tendency to shrink. While some high end cottons are pretreated for shrinkage, it is a good idea to set cottons before using them. To set the fabric, wash in warm water and cool dry.
Tip Nine: Due to the great qualities of cotton fabrics, you will often find other fibers blended with cotton. Polyester is essentially plastic, but polyester cotton blends are great. They add durability, reduce shrinkage issues, and generally eliminate problems with wrinkling. It is important to check the fabric label for the percentage of fiber content. If there is a high polyester content, the character of the fabric will be more like polyester than cotton. A shirt with 70% cotton and 30% polyester, is going to give the cotton the good features of the polyester, but maintain the good features of the cotton. The result is a shirt that wears wrinkle free with high durability that still breathes. Reverse the percentages, and the increased plastic features appear resulting in a very hot shirt. You will also find blends with other fibers. Examine the labels and consider the characteristics blended between the two fibers.
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