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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How to wash your Handloom Cotton Fabric - Folksmarket.com

Hey folks! In our last blog, we have briefly touched upon the 4 ways to care cotton fabric and talked in depth about the cotton, its evolution, its properties, types etc. The reason was to know your fabric before you can start caring about them. Now this piece will briefly touch upon the ways you can wash your cotton fabric.

Normally its not a science. Most of the manufacturers give instructions as how to wash and care for the fabric. Yet they may not be complete for wanting of the space! Its always a good idea to acquaint some basic principles that can be selectively use for different kind of fabric(apparels and furnishing) rather than knowing each and every detail for each and every kind of fabric!

Fabric often gets stained because of greases, oil, waxes, polluted chemicals present in the atmosphere and dyes. The aim of the fabric care, thus is two folds:

1-      Removing the pollutants

2-      Ironing to remove the wrinkles and bring freshness to the fabric

Fabric care is the joint responsibility of you and your cleaning agent.

Washing your Cotton Fabric

A - Spotting the spots

          1-      Identify the area that needs special attention. Usually its    neck, underarms and cuffs that need bit more rubbing. So before washing, check these spots.

         

          2-      Check if the fabric has some embellished (beads, graphics, zari, glitter etc). This area needs to pull inside out while washing.

 

          3-      Categorize your cotton fabric as “All white cotton” or “Dyed cotton”. Dyed cotton can also be thought as printed, graphed etc. Aim is to wash all white cotton and rest of the clothes separately. You can have multiple batching of the clothes depending upon the need.

B - Choose the detergent

           1-      General purpose detergent works well for cotton fabric and most of the fabric. We need to see of there is any scum or leftover on the fabric.

   

           2-      Check whether your detergent is mild or harsh. One good domestic way is to dissolve the recommended (normally given on the wrappers) quantity of detergent in 900 ml of cold water and allow the detergent and water to sit for 24 hours. Note if there is a residue settled in the bottom of the container. Now if it happens, then be sure that these residues are not going to be washed easily and often they will leave the whitish stain on the fabric. They are called as scum.

            3-      Choose the detergent which leaves no such scum. Don’t settle for low quality detergents.

C - Bleaching of white stained Cotton Fabric

One of the important characteristic of cotton fabric is that it can be bleached easily and retain that saints look for years. Hydrogen peroxide is a great bleaching agent. But Chlorine bleach is normally recommended for cotton fabric.

1- Take around 4 liters of semi hot water. Make sure that water is hot enough to clean but not hot enough to damage the fabric. Ideally you should be able to insert your finger to judge that temperature of the water. Mix a cup of dry dishwasher soap and add 1/3 cup of bleaching agent. Ensure that the mixing of this is not taking place in a metal container.

2- Put all the stained white clothes in small batches in this mixture and allow the fabric to soak the bleaching water. Do not agitate or rub at this moment, just allow them to soak.

3- Remove the clothes in 30-40 minutes depending upon the intensity of the stained. In any way not more than 40 minutes.

4- After 30-40 minutes, put the fabric immediately into washing machine without rinsing the bleached fabric. Add some washing detergent, on your washing machine and when its about to reach the rinse cycle add a 2/3^rd of White vinegar (or distilled vinegar or virgin vinegar). Let machine completes its washing. Dry the fabric after wash in clothing lines or washing machine. But make sure that you still put the clothes in clothing lines even if you dried in machine. Sun rays are so essential to fabric! Allow them to breath in fresh air.

5- White vinegar is essentially a distilled form of vinegar that is a mixture of acetic acid and water. It’s a common household, economical liquid and environment friendly. It kills all the bacteria, fungi and moulds from the fabric.

D - Other batch of CottonFabric

            1-  Wash cotton fabric either in machine or hand wash. Use lukewarm water and laundry detergent.

            2-   Irrespective of the fact that you are washing in machine, soak the clothes for 30 minutes in a non metallic container with the detergent.

  

            3-   Rub those spotted stained parts after 30 minutes. It may not be clean but at least you have agitated the dirt agents and they are more likely to adhere with the detergent while washed in a machine.

           4-    While soaking the embellished clothes and fabric pull them inside out. Don’t rub them hard, either don’t rub or rub very very gently.

   

           5-    Make sure that you rinse properly. This consumes more water than that required for washing. So please make sure that you utilize the water. Rinsing is an act of allowing the detergent to wash away taking dirt along.

          6-     Machine dried clothes should also be dried under the sky for a while.

   

    Cotton fabric are breathing fabric, the care as you have seen so far is not difficult. We all wish to care our fabric not only for its durable use but also to get a fresh feel away from pollution every time we wear. So why not we get more out of our efforts and make our fabric safe in our hands!!

For more details, please log in www.folksmarket.com

Kindly contact us at:

folks@folksmarket.com