Textile Fabrics and Finishes

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• Textile Fabrics and Finishes

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Objectives

• Identify most common fabric constructions
• Describe main fabric finishing procedures
• Recognize importance of quality and performance
  standards
• Summarize aspects of the textile industry
• Explain how fabrics are sold down the chain
• Cite textile industry trade information
• Tell about future predictions for textiles

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Fabric Design and Construction

• Two forms of design
• Structural Design
• Building in texture or interest during
  manufacturing process
• Weaving and knitting most common
• Applied Design
• Adding color, pattern, or other features to the
  structural design
• Printing on fabric

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Fabric Construction Methods

• Weaving
• Plain crosshatch pattern
• Twill diagonal wale
• Satin floating yarns

• Knitting
• Weft
• Warp
• Nonwoven
• Fused
• Felted
• Films

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Fabric Terms

• Grain direction yarns run in the fabric
• Lengthwise - warp
• Crosswise - weft
• Diagonal - bias
• Selvage
• Finished weft edge of fabric

SELVAGE
WARP
WEFT
BIAS
SELVAGE
CUT EDGE
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Variations of Weaves

• Stripes
• Checks
• Plaids
• Jacquard
• Pile fabrics
• Terry cloth
• Corduroy
• Velvet

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Knitting

• Looping yarn together
• Made using one yarn
• Built-in stretch
• Wrinkle resistant
• Does not ravel like woven material, but may run
• Weft (filling) stretches in both directions
• Warp stretches one direction run-proof

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Nonwoven Fabrics

• Compact web of fibers (not yarns) constructed
  using
• Moisture
• Heat
• Chemicals
• Friction
• Pressure
• No grain

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Other Construction Methods

• Laces and Nets
• Made by knotting
• Decorative trim
• Braids
• Decorative trims
• Bonded fabrics
• Fusible web
• Interfacing and hem tape
• Quilted fabrics

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Fabric Finishing

• Converters
• Mills that change greige goods into finished
  fabrics
• Applying colors, designs, or surface treatments
• Bleaching
• Dyeing
• Printing
• Finishes

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Dyeing

• Fiber
• Adding color to fibers before spinning into yarns
• Yarn
• Placing yarns in dye bath
• before making into fabric
• Piece
• Fabrics dyed after weaving or knitting
• Garment
• Dyed after construction

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Printing

• Adding color, pattern, or design to surface of
  fabric
• Overall prints
• Same across fabric
• Directional prints
• Specific direction to pattern
• Plaids
• Even - same in warp and weft
• Uneven - different in warp or weft

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Printing Methods

• Heat Transfer
• Design on printed paper transferred to fabric by
  heat and pressure
• Digital
• Computer method uses ink-jet printing
• Flocking
• Fibers attached by patterned glue

• Roller
• Applies color design by roller
• Screen
• Similar to stenciling
• Rotary Screen
• Applies color design by cylinder-shaped nylon
  screens

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Fabric Finishes

• Mechanical finishes affect size and appearance
• By heat, moisture, stretching, singeing
• Example preshrinking
• Chemical finishes affect performance
• Permanent press
• Waterproof
• Water repellent
• Flame resistant
• Antistatic
• Stain and soil resistant

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Standards

• Quality
• Rate textiles according to levels of defects
• Performance
• Rate textiles for specific end-use suitability

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The Textile Industry

• Specialized companies perform stages of the
  textile segment of the chain
• Technology necessary
• CAD/CAM
• Fashion
• Tracking designs, trends, forecasts
• Marketing
• Planning, pricing, promoting, distributing

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Selling Finished Fabrics

• Staple fabrics
• Sold each year with little or no change in
  construction
• Novelty fabrics
• Fashion fabrics that change with style trends
• Overruns
• When a mill makes more fabric than was ordered by
  customers

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Trade Information

• American Textile Manufacturers Institute, Inc.
  (ATMI)
• Industry-wide marketing, government relations,
  trade policies
• American Printed Fabrics Council, Inc. (APFC)
• Printing achievements
• American Association of Textile Chemists and
  Colorists (AATCC)
• Wet processing aspects

TEXTILES
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Future of Textiles

• Continued U.S. innovation
• Stay internationally competitive
• Update plants
• Continued automation
• Flexibility and versatility for shorter
  production runs of different fabrics
• Increased knit production
• Textile firms need more sophisticated marketing
  techniques

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Do You Know . . .

• A finishing term that ends in proof means
  complete protection (as in waterproof).
• Hand is the term used for textiles that refers to
  the way fabrics feel to the touch. Hand may apply
  to drape, softness, firmness, crispness, or
  elasticity.