Different types of Indian handloom fabric by Folksmarket.com

Hi Folks, how many different types of fabric you have seen so far? I m sure many but its not always that you pay attention to these different kinds of fabric which you use almost on a daily basis. 

Before coming into field, I have never paid attention while my mom used to sew any clothes but as soon as I m introduced to this amazing world of fabric now everything changes suddenly. One becomes more interested in knowing while looking at any clothing as what kind of fabric is it? Is it a handmade or machine made? Natural or Man Made and so on..

While visiting to any clothing shop you would have heard the shopkeeper naming different fabric varieties, organza, muslin, chiffon, denim and so on.

 
(Log in to www.folksmarket.com to choose from one of the biggest  handloom  fabric collection)

 
In this section of our conversation, we wish to briefly touch upon different types of fabric. This should come handy to you while you go to a shop for purchase or window shopping. You should be able to appreciate different fabric and choose the one that suits your need in best way.

Well fabric is any woven (hand or machine) finished product from the yarns. It is complete in the sense of its ready to use after cutting and stitching. The different stages for the handloom fabric from natural fibres can be broadly categorized as

Cultivation of fibres --> Spinning of the fibres into yarn --> Dyeing --> Weaving --> Cutting and Stitching (including embroidery, zari etc) --> Washing --> Ready to use

Although in between any two stages, there are many more steps involved and there are separate mills and industries involve even for a single stage, yet in general it is suffice to know the above multi-stages of fabric production

Fabrics are formed from various raw materials available in nature or artificially made in labs or a mix of both.

Natural fabrics are those which are made from the animal furs (wool), plant seeds (cotton), cocoons of silk worm (silk), leaves and stems (jute and hemp). Synthetic fabrics are made from organic or inorganic materials combined with chemicals.

Among natural fabric and synthetic, the clear winner in totality is definitely Natural fabrics. It is breathable (due to presence of air packets in wool for example) and very skin friendly. It hardly changes its color from UV light and as long as the tensile strength of fabric is maintained, it will never be warmed. Synthetic fabrics are made in most of the cases for mass demand and more strength.

Lets take a look at important types of fabric

In this post we are publishing types of Natural Fabric. The Synthetic Fabric varieties will be covered in our next blog post

Cotton Fabric

Cotton Fabric by Folksmarket.com

Its an all season fabric and most widely used. From apparels to home furnishing to the industrial purpose, cotton finds their place almost everywhere. They are skin-friendly and possesses and amazing quality of keeping your body cool in summer and warm in winter.

Silk Fabric

Silk Fabric by Folksmarket.com

 Contrary to the general perception, silk fabric is one of the strongest natural fabric. It is known for its luster, beauty and affluent look. It is one of the high grade fabric and provides comfort to its user. Like cotton it too has the quality of keeping you warm in winter and cool in summer. Silk maintenance is bit expensive as compared to other fabric

Linen Fabric

Linen Fabric by Folksmarket.com

 One of its striking characteristic is resistant to allergies. Also known as King of all fabric, Linen is used for apparels, home furnishing and automobile industry. Its very easy to maintain and can be hand-washed.

Wool Fabric

Wool Fabric by Folksmarket.com

 The basic purpose of the wool is to keep you warm. Imagine the Musk-ox who thrives in glaciers of arctic. What made them possible in living in such an extreme weather? It’s the qiviut or under hair of the musk-ox. The wool fabrics are soft strong and very durable fabric.

Leather Fabric

 Obtained and made from the skin of animals, the Leather fabric has unique quality of absorbing the water vapours without losing the dryness. It is also stretchable and doesnot loose its shape on stretching. Although there are many ethical issues that engulfed the Leather Fabric, still its popular among folks!

 Most of the time, the Leather Fabric are not woven using handloom, therefore at Folksmarket.com, we do not deal in Leather Fabric.


Hemp Fabric

 Hemp is obtained from the stem of the plants. Italy is known to have the finest hemp in the world. They are durable, absorbs water well than any other natural fabric and possess insulation quality. 

Environmentally they are called as Super Fibre, they are made from the herbaceous plant that has high yield. Hemp fabric are soft and most suitable for the apparels that withstand harsh conditions. They are used for clothing, curtains, draperies, upholstery, bed spreads, table linens etc.

Jute Fabric

Jute Fabric by Folksmarket.com

 Jute is very strong and durable fabric. Since ages they are the preferred choice of sacks and bags. Now a days they are finding enough popularity in fashion industry. Lots of fashion accessories, footwear etc are made from the jute. India is the second largest producer of Jute after Bangladesh.

Carpets, Linoleum, Cordages and Twines are made majorly from Jute. They are traditionally been important fibres for the industry. It is sometimes used as webbing to cover the inner springs of the auto seats.

To be continued for Synthetic Fabrics in our next blog...

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