- Coco Chanel has been quoted as saying, "Garments are designed into their fabrics, not the other way around".
Join us today, as a professor who's a textile expert helps us gain a better understanding of fabrics and exactly what Chanel was talking about.
We'll learn the essential concepts and importance of weaves, yarns, and piles, we'll learn the difference between cellulose and animal fibers.
Remember the fabric always wins, today on Fit 2 Stitch.
(gentle music) - [Announcer] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Britex Fabrics, Vogue Fabrics, Evanston Illinois, Bennos Buttons, Kai Scissors, Sew Steady, O.C.
Sewing, Buena Park, Fullerton, Garden Grove, and Irvine, California.
Richland Sewing Center, Dallas, Texas and the Metroplex, Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, and Mike Gunther Industries.
I feel very confident to be with Dr. Jason Stanford today because as we talk about fibers, and I get so many questions asked to me about fibers, there's times I'm just not quite certain but this guy knows everything about fibers.
Ph.D., been doing this for almost 20 years and here's the good news, he's just gonna take us through the whole process of fibers.
What they are, what they become and it's really exciting.
And you know what's really cool, and I know for all of you watching, is when you start to talk to somebody who knows fibers, there's like this instant connection, it's you know, you know what I know.
And so I'm really grateful that you're here today to help us understand really what's involved, why we use it, and what we use it for.
- Very good, thanks Peggy for having me, I really appreciate that.
I'm gonna begin by outlining the three industries in which the textile industry revolves around.
- Okay.
- They are apparel, - Okay.
- interiors, - Okay.
- and then industrial.
- So apparel is that the largest of them?
- Apparel is gonna be 34% whereas the two I's, the interior and the industrial are 33%.
So it's just a slightly, - Oh wow, apparel does still take on more.
- Very slightly, yes.
- Okay, and the interiors would be obviously, hotels?
- Interiors, coming from the standpoint of interior design, it would be - Sure.
- any soft textiles within the home, from draperies to pillows, bedding, - All that stuff.
- and all that.
- And then what's industrial?
- Okay, industrial is going to, it runs the gamut.
It goes from your make-up remover pads all the way to road bed lining.
You might see it like, when you're going to road bed somewhere and you're driving along the highway.
- So anything that's not the first two kinda falls into that third category, maybe?
- Correct, that's exactly the way to put it.
- But it's surprising, it's so large.
- It is.
It's such a large percentage especially with all the clothing we go through.
- Yeah, it is.
- Alright, so we're really gonna deal mainly with apparel.
- Yes, we're gonna do modeling with apparel and we're gonna go through the process what I'd like to call the Textile Scint.
Its a scint order.
- Okay.
- Textiles run from fiber, fiber formation, yarns, into the fabrication itself, and then into color, dyeing, printing, and then lastly, finishes.
- Perfect, perfect, sounds fun.
- Well I hope so, - I love fibers, I love fibers.
- I hope so too.
You'll notice, I kinda have the table divided out in which they are, - Okay.
- in that scint array I just spoke about.
We're gonna start with fibers.
- Okay.
- And I'm gonna begin by discussing the two cellulosic natural fibers.
The two cellulosic natural fibers are cotton and wools.
Wool's another example of natural cellulosic material.
- So the wool though, can be done in so many different ways.
- It can.
- It can be made in so many different ways.
- Yes it can.
Felt is created by the wool fibers being heated and agitation introduced to it.
- The felting process.
- The felting process, that's correct.
- Sure, sure.
- And then what happens is, it creates an embodiment of the fabric that's very moldable.
úúYou'll see them in like craft hats, and so forth.
Its one of the oldest - Oh, okay.
That's why hats are felted.
- in the industry.
- Because it's moldable.
- Yes.
Because it's very craft-related material today.
- Interesting.
- There is a process of having felt material that falls outside of wool which, - okay.
- that would be cheaper and that is with polyester.
And we'll get to that in a moment when I talk about polyester.
- And so, I noticed with felt, with wool, I noticed we've got the felting but then right underneath it is a beautiful cashmere.
- Cashmere, it's cashmere.
It's from a very famous, fancy goat.
úAnd we'll get more of that - Okay.
Okay.
- in a moment.
I wanted to move on from the two cellulosic and after that, we have the two protein.
And the two protein natural fibers are silk and wool, as we mentioned with the cashmere.
- Okay.
- So silk is an example of a material which comes from the silk worm.
The Chinese, they definitely own the market for silk production.
- Interesting.
- The labor intensity in it alone is just enormous.
Its just not fathomable in our industry.
- For everybody else to start it.
Got it.
- Right, exactly, exactly.
So again, those are the four natural.
You have two cellulosic, - Okay.
- which would be again cotton, and then linen.
Which I think I left out, y'all have to forgive me, - That's okay.
- Linen is flax.
Flax linen comes from the stock of a plant.
- That would be like a bamboo shoot.
- Yeah, bamboo, a lot of people are knowledgeable about linen from the, like a linen table cloth.
A linen suit.
- Sure.
- It is actually made from the fiber materials from the stock of a plant.
- Okay, perfect.
- So, that would be your two cellulosic, which are here in the front, in the foreground.
You have the cotton and the flax.
And then you also have, as we mentioned earlier, the wool and the silk.
- Okay.
- And then we're gonna move on, we're gonna go towards what is known as manufacture cellulosics.
- Okay.
- This is what I like to tell my students is, a cross between modern science and old-school science.
- Interesting.
- And how I like to further explain that is when you have the two, there's only three that are included, it's rayon, lyocel, and you'll have to forgive me, the third one is escaping me right now, but, of those two - That's okay, it will come.
- Rayon, for instance, one of the oldest, the third one is acetate.
- Sure.
You just don't like it.
- Acetate.
- That's why you wanted to forget it.
- I guess not, you know, an irony too, acetate, - Yeah.
- it was created during one of the First World Wars, as an airplane coating, for wings on airplanes.
- Interesting.
- Acetate and they later derived it.
- So it's almost like a plastic covering all those, kind of.
- It is, when you talk about synthetics, which is next, that's pretty much, they're all derived from a plastic source material.
- Interesting.
- But regarding the three, the best of both worlds, the reason why I said that is because scientists would use natural cellulosic materials with polymers and put them together.
So they predate, they're older than synthetic.
Synthetic is an old, the - [Peggy] This really is the science coming together with the fibers.
- That's exactly right.
- They're really manipulating these fibers.
- That's exactly right, science is a big part of manufacture cellulosics and true synthetics.
- So does all of that drive cost up or drive cost down?
- Drives cost down.
- Okay.
- Because it's really not relevant on supply and demand from the natural world.
Synthetics come from - I see, okay, sure.
- petroleum by-products.
- Sure.
- The generic state of synthetic fibers is a plastic polymer and when the molecules - So interesting.
- Yeah, I know, they are.
- It's really interesting, I guess it's interesting to you, coz you have a whole Ph.D. on it.
- Yes, yes.
- Tell me about this one, I just - This would be a silk sample.
- Because I love the sheer, so how do they do the sheers?
What happens with the fibers on that?
- When you're revolving around silk and synthetic fibers are extruded through what is called a spinneret.
A spinneret looks a lot like a shower head apparatus except the holes will be a lot smaller.
And depending on the diameter of the hole, it's going to extrude as very fine fiber - Interesting.
- or a thicker fiber.
And the gauge of fiber, the generated fiber could be several thousands in count, so like, less than one.
And the lower the number, - Ah.
- It's a direct correlation, the lower the number, the more fine and hairlike, the fiber.
- So when the fibers are really, really thin they can weave them and you get that sheer effect.
- You get the very sheer effect.
- Because the fibers are so so so so small.
Interesting.
- Right.
And regarding silk, being a natural, silk is the thinnest to near of natural fibers.
Silk is actually thinner than wools.
- Okay, doesn't mean that sheer fabrics are weak fabrics.
- No, not necessarily at all.
- Coz I think that's definitely correlated together sometimes.
- That can, it will come more into play when we talk about wovens.
- Okay, alright.
- We'll get to that in just a moment.
But I wanted to go ahead and point out like, this would be a garment that is made out of polyester.
- Okay.
- It would be athletic shorts for young men and you'll notice that, in the difference, this is a silk and this is a polyester.
They're completely two different classifications of fibers.
- Sure.
- However, this one is easier to produce, in the sense that, it's readily available to supply and demand in the open market.
- Sure.
So that's what drives the cost down because got it.
- Right, exactly.
And then also, I want to mention that we have what is known as a lyocell, which is a trade name that you may come across called TENCEL.
And TENCEL is another fabrication and again the only difference between this one and this one, these are both synthetic fibers, regarding the gym shorts for young men, these would be an example of the fiber itself not being as thick as the fiber created on this pants.
- Sure, that makes sense.ú That's why the drape is better too.
- That's right.
- Okay.
- Completely, exactly.
- Okay coz it's closer.
Okay.
- That's completely right.
So then that's all about fibers then we go into a fabric formation.
- Okay.
- In fabrics, there are three types of loom production.
A loom is in which all - How they take those fibers and put them all together.
- Put them all to yarn and then put them all into a fabric.
- Oh, cool.
- In a fabric, there are three types of fabric.
So, at this point, there is a plain woven material.
In plain woven, simply the yarn that's created from the fibers, so it's fiber to yarn, the yarns are woven into the sample where they go over and under - Sure.
- each adjacent yarn.
- The weft and the warp.
One goes up - The weft and the warp and one goes down.
- The warp goes the length of the wool, and the warp goes the width - The weft.
- the weft, sorry, yes - Yeah.
- The weft goes the - The way I always remember is warp, the A comes first before weft - Oh, good point.
- So you've got to have the warp before you remember the weft.
- Yeah, get to the weft.
Right.
- That's the only way I can ever remember.
- That's very smart, actually.
See, you can even teach me things, after all these years.
That's really smart.
- Just I can't remember what you know, so.
- Oh, I appreciate that, but again, going back to the woven types, this is a plain, this is a twill, and the last one is a satin.
- [Peggy] Denim is a twill.
- Yes, denim is a twill, so are chinos, and a lot of fabrics that are form that way.
Basically, in a a plain woven, every yarn is going over and under the adjacent yarns for the complete duration of the fabric.
- [Peggy] Okay.
- [Dr. Jason] In twill, it goes over two and under one and over two and under one ú- [Peggy] Oh, so that's what makes diagonal runs.
- [Dr. Jason] Eventually, yes, that's what makes the diagonal line.
- Okay, sure.
- [Dr. Jason] And then the last type is satin.
A satin would go over four and under one.
- [Penny] Oh, interesting.
- And over four and under one.
So I have a little quiz question for you.
Little pop quiz.
- Okay.
Uh-oh, I might fail this.
- Of the three, which one do you believe would snag most?
- Well, I would say, over four.
- [Dr. Jason] That's right, you're correct.
- [Peggy] Because you don't have, yeah.
- You're creating an open physics, you know how I always like to tell uni students with like a fiber is a yarn, a fiber is a fiber, it's about the best that I can explain.
- Sure.
- But in the physical property they're next to each other.
You always have areas no matter how many you put together that create an opening, so what I mean by that, is that you have more openings.
- Coz you're gonna go over this, yeah.
- So - I passed, good.
- You did, you did pass, so yes, again, one more time, plain, twill, and satin.
- Got it.
- Over and under one, over two, under one, - Over two, right.
That creates a diagonal.
- Over four, under one.
That's correct.
- That's gonna snag.
That's correct, and the last one I wanted to talk about on wovens is simply that there is something called the Jacquard weave.
- Which is beautiful.
- Yes, it can make tapestries.
And with Jacquard weaves, what you do is you use a specialized loom that it has nothing similar to those to plain, twill, or satin.
- Coz this is a whole different loom.
- It is.
- Made up by Jacquard.
- Yeah.
- His name was Jacquard.
- Yes that is correct and it was made quite a long time ago, the invention.
In the woven process, there are harnesses that raise and lower different warp yarns at different times and a Jacquard - Okay.
- it's doing the same thing to the hundredth degree.
- Like there's so many different warps.
- [Peggy] Wow, that's why the patterns can be so much more intricate.
- That's why you can have a beautiful face of whatever on an actual Jacquard fabric.
- And also, the back is what amazes me.
Where the back, usually on Jacquards, you can tell they're Jacquards because of the back?
- [Dr. Jason] Yes, it's an exact invert.
It's an exact invert.
- It's beautiful.
I mean it's really - So whatever is happening on the front side, the other, in this example, you have browns and tans and this off-blue, it has to be the opposite on the other side for the fabric, for the yarn to keep carrying.
So if you turn it over where the brown is at, you're going to see where the other color comes into play.
- Got it, that's really beautiful.
- It's like a reverse.
- And Jacquards are more expensive again, because they're more complex.
- The production process is a lot more.
- Not anything, just the fiber, can you have every fiber in the Jacquard?
- Yes, you can.
- So you can have wool, Whatever?
- Yes.
- Everything can manage a Jacquard.
- Yes.
- Just the weave?
- That's true.
- So the fiber and the weaves have nothing to do with each other, they just, you can pick this, pick this, and put them together.
- You can, but there are, what I like to call aesthetic reasons behind choosing certain ones.
- Okay.
- I mean you wouldn't wanna dry off with a towel this morning with a polyester because they are not absorbent.
Your naturals, like cotton, are very absorbent.
- So they have to consider the end use.
- They have to consider - To what they're gonna use, that makes sense.
- Favorable properties and unfavorable properties.
- Got it.
- Now, I like to say, regarding wool, I mean, no one wears wool underwear, there's a reason for that, it's because of unfavorable properties to wool.
- So when we get to that towel, just because you brought it up, that wouldn't be on the apparel industry, that's in a interior industry.
- You're, spot on, that's correct.
- Interesting, okay.
- Definitely is.
- Alright.
- So again, just to recap a little bit, we went from fiber formation, then we went into the yarns.
And then yarns into wovens and the next we're gonna go from yarns into knits.
- Okay.
- And on knits, there's a knitting machines, there is a flat bed knitting machine, and then there's also a circular knitting machine.
- Okay, how can I tell the difference?
- Well, a lot - Can I?
- Yes you can on a certain - In a garment?
- On certain garments, yes.
- Okay.
- When you open up a particular garment and look it over, you will basically go to a side seam and I can tell by a side seam in a tshirt that it was a laid flat cotton sewing which is very typical of wovens.
- Oh, that's what they refer to as a cotton sewn.
- The cotton sewn type.
- A knit that's a cotton sewn.
- Right and if you take other types of tshirts and do the same thing and you'll notice there's no seam and around, there's no seam at all.
- There's no seam at all, there's no side seams.
- There's no side seams so what happens is - This is not something we can duplicate at home?
- No, - But, you'd have to be a knitter.
But this is something we can duplicate.
- Exactly.
- But is there any comfort, is there any, what's the advantage of having this round knitting machine.
- Well, the round knitting machine is really good for what is known, by the way, I kinda forgot here, there's what we talked about shortly called warps and weft.
- Right.
- But on knits, there are courses and wales.
The courses will be the lengthwise and wales will be, sorry.
Wales, lengthwise, courses, across.
- Opposite of the warp and weft.
- That's correct, yes, they kinda, well when you do.
- That's our completely different they are completely different - They are, they are.
- So they're completely opposite of wovens, we say that all the time that they are completely opposites.
- They are, and it's really interesting, I was trying to point out when I teach students in the class between the two differences, I go around the room and I automatically can denote what is woven and what is not and what do you believe, another quiz, are you ready?
- Yeah.
- What do you believe to be the most worn fabrication, woven or knit, to college students?
- I would say, no question, - And it would be?
- Knits.
- Knits is correct.
90% of the time - No question.
They don't even know what a woven is at their age.
- Yes, wovens are very structured and - They are.
- Form-fitting - Well and I think, even our older generation, don't you think we're losing, everything stretches even, I mean, you know.
- Yes.
- We're losing woven fabrics.
- Right, it's comfort and usability.
But back to the question on the side seam for the cotton sewn, whenever you introduce a cotton sewing mechanism, no matter if you're with plain woven or twill, you have to cut what is on the grain.
- Okay.
- Well, a course and a wale also has a grain, so if a shirt is laid out to be the side seams and so forth to be sewn, you're introducing what could be off-grain in a knit fabric, so we've all had this problem, usually it's from less expensive garments.
What you'll do is you buy a tshirt that's like $5 or $5.95 or what have you and after you launder it, you wear it, it's all of a sudden like this.
- It does.
- Like the side seams go off.
They go off.
- It does.
- That's cotton sewn 101, and fast production.
Now, if you have a circular knitting machine and in that circular knitting machine, it is creating a constant.
- Oh, so that's a huge advantage of that circular machine.
- It's a huge advantage.
And it actually costs more because usually the ones that are, have no side seam are the ones of higher quality cotton.
- Sure.
- All fibers have degrees of quality in itself.
- Got it.
- So that's knits and after knits, we go to, I'm gonna just flashback to the left a little bit here again to my left, with wool fibers, with felt, this would be an example of a non woven.
So the three types of fabrications.
- Oh, so even though it's wool, it's because of felting - It's now a fabric, a textile - Okay, sure.
- So in the industry, you have wovens, knits, and non wovens - Got it.
- And other non woven materials that are very typical to a home store would be those that are fusible or non-fusible interfacing.
- Sure.
- That is also non woven.
- Sure, very interesting, it's just so interesting to separate them all out, to recognize, then you can decide what do you want, what do you like, what do you wanna use?
Coz we ultimately get to choose when we're sewing.
Which is really nice.
- We do, and again, I go back to what I said earlier, the usability of knits are perfect, you know.
- Sure.
- I mean I like to dress up like the next best person does but I love the usability of knits and just being comfortable and relaxed.
- Sweats on the weekend.
(laughs) - Exactly, yes.
Shorts and flip flops, right?
- Got it, got it.
Tell me a little bit about this fabric coz I picked it, is this, can I do this now?
I mean this is such a cool fabric.
- Yeah.
- I wanna understand it a little bit more.
- Alright, in this type of production - Because in all of our discussions as I start talking about this, okay, how do we get to this?
- Alright, this is what is known as tulle fabrication.
And, - Okay.
- it's just a fabric type.
- So that's like they use bridal veils.
- They do.
Exactly.
- And all kind of stuff.
It's the same thing.
- Exactly.
And in this one, I can tell it's a knit because a tulle can be made from woven properties as well as from knit, but I can tell this is a knit because of it's inherent stretchability.
- Got it.
- If there was no stretch at all, then it's most likely a woven.
- And they could do it on either way but it's again depending on the end use.
- Yes.
- Whether they want the ability to - Exactly, do you want for the stretch, inherent stretch, - Sure, sure.
- So in this example, the fabric would have been created as the tulle first.
Which is what we'll see here, in the square between my fingers.
- Okay, so first the fiber is most likely polyester.
- Yes.
It's gonna be synthetic.
- Because why not it would be very expensive.
- it's continuous, silk but I would doubt this is silk.
And then the formation of the fabric is created in the total embodiment first.
- Got it.
- And then an industrial machine would go back and lay the pretty applique to the material as a second process, - Sure, they wanna be at the same so, it's gotta be higher cost.
- Yes.
- Just because there is that second process involved.
- That's right.
- So when you're looking at something like this, you're gonna expect to pay a little more?
- Yes, you would.
- Just because of that second process.
- Very pretty fabric, I actually like this a lot.
I can see this in a lot of formal wear for young ladies, for women.
- Sure, well I notice too, a lot of young kids are mixing dressy fabric with a denim.
- Yes.
- They're kinda putting those two together whereas my age.
- Yeah, - We do dressy and dressy, and casual and casual - it dictated more.
- where they're mixing fibers all over the place, it seems like, and I like that, when I see it, I like it.
- Yeah, one of the things I've noticed in my own life is I'm maturing as well, is that when it comes to fabrics and what is acceptable today, there's so much production out there and availability of things, brands too, from name brands to generic brands thst we're allowed a lot more today than we were - Yeah, we are, it's nice - Yeah, coz when I was in school, you know, in junior high over 25, 30 years ago, it's like every dress the same way or you were not in.
- With a dress code.
- Yes.
- Do you have a dress code in college today?
- Yes, no, no, no, no, no.
No dress code in college.
- Oh my.
- I don't, I've never seen one - Wow.
- but where I've ever been, I'm sure there are some schools that have them.
- That's interesting.
- But anyway, it's really nice.
And the next thing I want to go through after that, was again, to recap, from fibers, yarns, woven, knits, non woven and then to our what is the last part of the scint process would be dyeing, printing and finishing.
- Okay.
- So we'll talk about the dyeing process first.
In dyeing, a fabric is imparted, the fibers imparted dye stuff if you're trying to achieve a certain color at different stages of the process, if you dye at the fiber stage, the fiber is gonna inherently have a better - Absorption - Absorption, yah.
Especially the more natural it is or the more texture the fiber is, it will adhere to the dyes better.
And then you can also do it in the yarn, you can dye, the yarn's gonna be created as an off-white cotton and then they can be dyed blue in the fiber, dyed blue in the yarn.
And they can be dyed blue in the - Advantages, disadvantages, cheaper or more expensive?
- It will be cheaper the farther we go along.
- Okay, got it.
- So there's four process, so it's fiber, yarn, fiber dyeing, yarn dyeing, bolt dyeing, like you dye the whole bolt blue.
- After the weave is done.
- After the weave is done.
- Got it.
- And the fourth and final is garment dyeing.
Just take that whole tshirt, and put it in blue.
- And that's where the whole stone washing thing comes in too.
- Right, that's true.
- The whole garment is finished and they just.
- Yes, it's finished, they do.
- tear it up a little bit.
- They actually launder it in a specialized machine with a different rocks.
- Right.
But to answer your question, the least expensive would be the garment process because it's at the very end of the process and it's very determinate on demand.
Like if blue is the hottest new color, a lot of designers will go ahead and create the garment to the very end.
- I'm amazed with this pillow, tell me about this pillow.
This is just really cool.
- There is a process that created the ultimate pillow and that would be, again, with the fabric.
- They got to pick the fabric.
- The fabric was chosen first, which this fabric is the fabric we see on the pillow.
- [Narrator] To learn more how fabric is printed, we took a trip to a textile processing mill.
This is one of the last heat transfer printers left in the United States.
The design is selected from a high quality tissue-like paper that is impregnated with ink, there are endless designs to choose from.
That tissue-like paper is meshed with the chosen fabric on this enormous machine.
Extreme heat transfers the design to the fabric.
Not only is heat transfer a fraction of the price compared to weaving but it also offers a wider variety of color and fabric options to the consumer.
These are ideal fabrics for pillow covers, drapes, and really all your home decor needs.
- I can't say thanks enough Dr. Stanford for taking your time coming down here, to teach all of us about fabrics.
Next time, we'll learn how to take those great ideas and get them onto paper.
Be sure to be here next time on Fit 2 Stitch.
(gentle music) - [Announcer] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Britex Fabrics, Vogue Fabrics, Evanston, Illinois, Bennos Buttons, Kai Scissors, Sew Steady, O.C.
Sewing, Buena Park, Fullerton, Garden Grove, and Irvine, California, Richland Sewing Center, Dallas, Texas and the Metroplex, Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, and Mike Gunther Industries.
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