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How To Choose Your Upholstery FabricHow To Choose Your Fabric. Part One and Two How To Calculate Yardage How To Choose Your Fabric. Part One So many choices! Here are some of the things to consider when choosing your fabric... The quick answer? You want a heavy upholstery grade fabric with a tight weave. If you are heading out to the store look for fabric that is hanging on a roll as opposed to fabric that is wrapped around a bolt (a flat piece of cardboard).1. Style. The style of your fabric should be appropriate to the character and style of the piece you are covering. Usually, a more traditional frame will suit a more traditional fabric style. But this is not always the case. Sometimes skull and cross bones look amazing on an old Victorian chair. It all depends on your style and what mood you are going for. Also, you want to watch the scale of the pattern. A large room can handle larger patterns while a smaller room would do best with a plain fabric or something with a smaller pattern. 2. Color. Of course! This is usually the primary reason why you would choose your fabric, but remember that certain colors may not be the best to hide those stains and normal wear and tear. Remember to take into account any animals and/or children you may have in your household. 3. Durability. What kind of piece are you wanting to recover? Is it an occasional chair that is rarely occupied? If so, this kind of chair can easily take silks and velvets or thinner fabric. Is your piece that big comfy couch that people pile onto? Maybe your dog likes to sit in the center or your kids like to jump on it. Here you will want a very durable fabric that is tightly woven and has a high thread count. Remember that a fabric with the pattern "woven" in will wear much better than your printed fabrics. 4. Thread Count. The higher the thread count, the more tightly woven the fabricÉand the better it will wear. Thread count refers to the number of threads per square inch of fabric. 5. Fade Resistance. If your furniture placement means that it will get direct sunlight make sure that you stay away from your velvets and silks as they will fade quickly. Part Two will dive deeper into types of fabrics that are appropriate for your furniture covering needs. How To Choose Your Fabric. Part 2. In Part One of How To Choose Your Fabric we went over your style choices, color, the durability of the fabric, thread count and fade resistance. In Part Two we are going to discuss the different types of fabrics appropriate for your furnishings. There are two types of fabrics out there and they are Natural or Synthetic. Each type has their pros and cons and it is up to you which direction you want to go in. In the Natural fabric category you have your Cottons, Cotton Blends, Leathers, Linens, Silks and Wools. Let's look first at Cotton... Cotton is a natural fiber that is durable and gives a relatively good resistance to wear, especially to pilling (like a sweater) and fading. However it does collect soil and it does wrinkle. Damask weave cottons give a more formal feel whereas canvas weaves are more casual and definitely more durable. You will typically find your canvas weaves in the outdoors on your patio furniture but they can be used inside in high traffic areas such as a mud room or play rooms. Cotton Blends are sturdy and extremely family friendly. You can use these for your big comfy couch that gets a lot of kid or pet action. A good stain-resistant finish is always a good idea. Leather is a touch material that comes in many colors, finishes and even raw hides that you or your skilled upholsterer can dye. It is extremely durable and as age sets in it's character becomes simply divine. Leather is easy to clean and can be used on a wide variety of furniture styles. Make sure your upholsterer knows how to work with leather as one mis-step of the needle can cause a permanent hole unlike with other fabrics. Linen is a great fabric is you are looking for that fresh look. They are well suited in formal living areas but they will not take a lot of heavy wear high traffic areas. Linen does resist pilling and fading but they need to be professionally cleaned. Silk is a wonderful fabric for formal areas as well but it is delicate and like linen it too needs to be professionally cleaned when soiled. Wool resists fading, pilling, wrinkling and soil! It is durable and sturdy and wool blends are nearly perfect. Blends can be spot cleaned. --------------------------- In the next category we have our Synthetics which include Acetates, Acrylics, Microfibre, Nylon, Olefin, Polyester, Rayon and Vinyl. Acetate is imitation silk. It resists mildew, pilling and shrinkage. However soil resistance is not great and it tends to wrinkle, wear and fade in the sun. Acrylic is imitation wool and it resists soil, fading and wear. Make sure that you choose a high quality Acrylic as low qualities tend to pill in high traffic areas. Nylon is rarely used by itself and is usually blended with other fibers to make it one of the strongest upholstery fabrics on the market. It is durable and as a blend it helps to eliminate the crushing of napped fabrics. The downside is that it tends to pills and fade. Much like Nylon, Polyester is rarely used by itself but when blended it eliminates crushing, fading and wrinkling. Olefin is a durable choice for furniture that is going to see a lot of action and heavy wear. Rayon is also imitation silk, linen and cotton. It is durable but can wrinkle. Vinyl is a practical choice as replacement leather. It is good for kid's furniture, family rooms or the kitchen chairs. But just like leather make sure that your upholsterer is familiar with the fabric. So there you have it...your crash course on fabric choices. As you are shopping for your fabric remember to take a look at it's "ingredients". Feel the fabric, pull and stretch it and look at how it behaves. If the weave is thin avoid it. If the pattern doesn't "look right" stay away from it and if the edges are fraying run away. Remember that your Upholsterer will be putting the fabric to the test and there is nothing worse than fabric that tears on you as you are stretching it to the piece. If it stretches as the Upholsterer is working on it you can guarantee that it will tear while in your home. Happy fabric hunting! For a yardage and repeat calculator please click here To view a furniture chart with yardage please click here An Important Word About Fabric Patterns It is important to know how different patterns affect the amount of fabric you will need for a particular piece. Plain fabric and fabric with small patterns are easily determined whereas fabric with large patterns (the repeat) are more difficult. It is normal practice to center a pattern on a piece therefore you will always need more fabric as much of the excess fabric will then be rendered useless due to pattern matching. So how do you measure for the repeat? It is simple. Lay out your fabric to indicate the center of the pattern, then measure out horizontally until that pattern repeats itself. This is your pattern width (leave about a half inch to one inch on either side of your pattern for alllowances. Now measure vertically until you run across the same pattern, again leaving room for allowances. This is now your pattern length. Add both measurements and now you have your total pattern repeat number. Take a look at the below chart for our fabric repeat calculator as this will help you in your fabric calculations.Contact Knox Upholstery for a FREE quote. |
Let's Get Started!Step #1. What does your piece look like Step #2.Contact Us! Step #3.How much fabric do you need Step #4.What kind of fabric do you need Step #5.Where to shop locally
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