Fun Fabric Facts

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Paisley was named after a Scottish town that, in the 19th century, produced copies of Indian cashmere shawls with cone motifs that we call paisley today.

Chintz was used as a dress fabric in America as early as colonial days. The fabric was imported from India to England and then to the colonies. By the early 1900s, this popular fabric was often of poor quality that faded and lost much of its shine when washed. Thereafter, anything of inferior quality was referred to as "chintzy."

Corduroy was a name coined during King Louis of France's reign. The king insisted everyone around him be dressed in splendor. Even his servants were instructed to have a polished look, so they traded in their plain cottons and woolens for a new cotton fabric with a more luxurious-looking nap -- dubbed "cord du roi," or, in English, "cords of the king."
 

 
Glossary of Sewing Terms
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Absorbency: Ability of a fabric to take in moisture. Absorbency is a very important property that affects many other characteristics such as: skin comfort, static build-up, shrinkage, stain removal, water repellency and wrinkle recovery.

Abrasion Resistance: Ability to resist wear from the continuous rubbing of the fabric against another surface. Garments made from fibers that possess both high-breaking strength and abrasion resistance can be worn often and for a long period of time before signs of wear appear.

Appliqué: Fabric design, or shape, stitched and/or fused to the right side of another fabric; style of quilting.

Basting: Large stitches made to hold fabric layers or seams in place temporarily, before final seams or sewing is done. One may also use safety pins or straight pins to baste.

Batting: The layer of stuffing (most thought of in quilting) to add warmth or thickness. May be cotton, polyester or wool. Can also be used in garment construction.

Bearding: When the batting fibers work their way through the top or bottom fabric layers of the quilt. It creates unsightly fuzz. Most often associated with inexpensive polyester battings, bearding can also happen with unbonded cotton.

Betweens: Small, thin needles used for finish quilting. Sizes range from 8 - 12,  the smaller number being a longer-length needle.

Bias: The diagonal of the fabric weave. A true bias is at a 45-degree angle from the selvage.

Binding: A strip of fabric sewn over a raw edge to finish, add strength, and/or decorate the edge.

Blind Hem: Stitch used to hold up the hem on heavy fabrics. This stitch can be done by hand or by machine. Also used in appliqué.

Calico: Any small repeated print design on cotton, usually a floral.

Casing: Two pieces of fabric sewn together to form a tube.

Clip: Small cut(s) made in the seam to allow for marking a pleat or dart. Also used to help a seam lay flat.

Colorfast: Color which will not wash out, rub off or fade with normal use.

Directional Print: A fabric with a printed pattern that has a definite "up" and "down", or grain. Care must be taken to match the direction when piecing.

Drapability: Ability of a fiber to bend easily. A flexible fiber such as acetate can be made into a highly drapable fabric and garment. Usually, the thinner the fiber, the better the drapability.

Ease: To make two pieces of different sizes fit together in the same seam. One piece may have to be stretched a little or bunched up slightly in order to get both pieces the same length.

Elasticity: Ability to increase in length under tension and then return to the original length when released.

Grain: The direction of the fabric, along the warp and weft threads. When aligning templates "with the grain" they need to be parallel to the warp, or length, of the yardage.

Griege: From the French "grege" (raw silk) and the Italian "greggio" (gray), also called "gray goods," the term refers to woven textiles as they come from the loom, before they are dyed or printed and sold as finished goods.

Hand: The way a fiber (yarn or fabric) feels when handled. Terms like soft, crisp, dry, silky, or harsh are used to describe the hand of a textile material. The type of yarn, fabric construction and finishing processes used affect the hand of a fabric.

Loft: A reference to the thickness and resilience of batting. A high-loft batting is thicker and fluffier than low-loft batting.

Mitered Corner: Corner (usually of a border) that is joined at a 45-degree angle, like a picture frame.

Muslin: A plain, undyed cotton fabric, available bleached or unbleached.

Nap: Fuzzy fibers on the surface of the fabric, or pile and hair on fabric, which has a definite up/down.

Notch: Marking(s) on patterns used to match up two pieces of fabric. Also used are clips.

Novelty Print: A fabric printed with small whimsical designs, often for a holiday or for craft use. Also called "conversation" prints and "craft" prints.

Pin-Baste: To use safety pins or straight pins to temporarily hold together fabric, a hem or a seam so you may sew it.

Pilling: Formation of groups of short or broken fibers on the surface of a fabric, which are tangled together in the shape of a tiny ball called a pill. Hydrophobic fibers tend to pill much more than hydrophilic fibers.

Piping: Cording covered by a strip of fabric (called a bias tape) sewn to create a decorative finish or edge of a project.

Raw edge: Unfinished fabric edge, but also used to describe ends of ribbon, piping or cording.

Resiliency: Ability of a material to spring back to shape after being creased, twisted, or distorted. It is closely connected with wrinkle recovery. An example of good resiliency is polyester.

Rotary cutter: Looks like a pizza cutter, but with a rolling razor-sharp wheel. Used with a special mat (self-healing) designed for it and a variety of clear rulers and templates to speed up the fabric-cutting process.

Seam allowance: Amount of fabric extending from the seam line to the raw edge usually from 1/4 - 5/8 inch.

Seam line: line along which a seam is stitched.

Seam ripper: Tool used to removed stitches with little damage to fabric.

Selvadges: The warp (long) edges of the fabric, finished and usually thicker than the rest of the fabric. Cut off when being pieced into a quilt.

Sharps: Small, thin needles with a very sharp tip or point.

Stash: A supply of fabric and notions used for quilting (and other sewing projects). Usually squirreled away in every conceivable nook and cranny in the house, garage, neighbor's attic, etc.

Stitch in the ditch: A method of quilting where you sew your stitches in the "ditch" created by the joins of the pattern pieces. Your quilting pattern will be that of your block pattern. Compare with outline quilting.

Strength: Some fibers are very strong, such as nylon and polyester. Others are weak, such as acetate and acrylic.

Strip-piecing: A time-saving method of cutting strips of fabric instead of individual shapes, and piecing the strips before cutting adjoining smaller block pieces from it.

Tack: Temporary stitches used to attach one piece of the fabric to another, also used is a basting stitch.

Template: A cardboard or plastic shape used as a pattern for tracing either piecing or appliqué patches, or for tracing lines to be quilted. Can also be made for pattern pieces you use frequently.

Topstitching: Hand- or machine-sewn stitches that are functional or decorative that will show on the outside of the design or garment.

Trapunto: A dimensional design created by parallel outlining stitches that are then stuffed with yarn or batting.

Tying: A traditional method of securing quilt layers with knotted ties at intervals across the quilt.

Warp/weft: The woven threads in the fabric. Warp threads are long and run from top to bottom in the length of the material. Weft threads run from side to side and are shorter.

Wickability: Ability of a fiber to transport moisture away from the skin.
 
 
Metric Conversion Charts
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Metric Conversions
U.S. Measurements Multiplied by Metric Measurement
yards X .9144 = meters (m)
yards X 91.44 = centimeters (cm)
inches X 2.54 = centimeters (cm)
inches X 25.40 = millimeters (mm)
inches X .0254 = meters (m)
    
Metric Measurements Multiplied by U.S. Measurements
centimeters X .3937 = inches
meters X 1.0936 = yards
Standard Equivalents
U.S. Measurement Metric Measurement
1/8 inch = 3.20 mm = 0.32 cm
1/4 inch = 6.35 mm = 0.635 cm
3/8 inch = 9.5 mm = 0.95 cm
1/2 inch = 12.7 mm = 1.27 cm
5/8 inch = 15.90 mm = 1.59 cm
3/4 inch = 19.10 mm = 1.91 cm
7/8 inch = 22.20 mm = 2.22 cm
1 inch = 25.40 mm = 2.54 cm
1/8 yard = 11.43 cm = 0.11 m
1/4 yard = 22.86 cm = 0.23 m
3/8 yard = 34.29 cm = 0.34 m
1/2 yard = 45.72 cm = 0.46 m
5/8 yard = 57.15 cm = 0.57 m
3/4 yard = 68.58 cm = 0.69 m
7/8 yard = 80.00 cm = 0.80 m
1 yard = 91.44 cm = 0.91 m
    
 
 
Happy Sewing ...