By Jan Bones and Pamela Howard

from Sew Stylish #1, pp. 36-37

You’ve picked up a pattern you love and you’re about to buy fabric to go with it when you notice that the pattern specifies only knit fabrics. If you’re thinking “that sounds like Greek to me,” don’t be discouraged. Your pattern is simply talking about the two basic categories that fabrics fall into: knits and wovens. Understanding and identifying these categories is essential to preventing all sorts of sewing and fitting puzzlement. In the following pages, you’ll get all the information you need on these two basic fabric types to take the mystery out of pattern instructions.

How to i.d. your fabric

When you can’t tell if a fabric is a knit or woven, put it through these tests:

Look for loops or grain

In knit fabric (left), one continuous yarn is looped repeatedly to create what looks like tiny rows of braids. In woven fabric (right), multiple yarns cross each other at right angles to form the grain, like a basket.

Apply the stretch test

When knit fabric is stretched along its width, it will stretch significantly. Along its length, it will stretch slightly. If a knit fabric is stretched excessively, a run may form. Most woven fabrics can’t stretch along the lengthwise grain (the length of the fabric), and there is minimal give along the crosswise grain (the width of the fabric). Check the wrinkle resistance

When you ball up a knit in your hand, it will crush easily. When you release it, the fabric will spring back into shape with few, if any, wrinkles. When you wad up a woven fabric, it usually wrinkles easily.

Inspect the edges

A knit is either sold as a tube or flat. On flat knits, factories apply round blobs of starch or glue along the lengthwise edges to prevent them from curling. Along the width, or cut edge, the fabric doesn’t fray. The lengthwise edges of a woven fabric, called the selvages, are strong and don’t move. The cut edge across the width of the fabric frays.

Jan Bones (SewingLingerie.com) teaches sewing all across the United States and Canada. Pamela Howard teaches sewing in the metro Atlanta area.

Model photo: Jack Deutsch; hair and makeup, Christie McCabe. Studio photos: Sloan Howard.

Learn about knits and wovens, and your sewing will be a cinch.

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