Ranking Fabrics by Difficulty Level

Half the battle of sewing really is picking your fabric. So, I thought it would be a really great idea to analyze a bit about their weave, fiber content, a bit about their structure, and how easy they are to work with. We're going to start off with plain weave cotton, your typical cotton print, your quilting cotton, cotton muslin or calico. It's going to be super well-behaved, super easy to work with. Plain weave cotton is going to go very solidly in very friendly for beginners. — Duchess satins are very shiny. They're very sturdy, so they're great for foundation materials like corsets or very structural gowns. In terms of satins, this is going to be the easiest to work with. It's very stable. However, there is no easy grain line on this. The minute you start to go off grain, you start to get more stretch, which can introduce some strange behavior and some wrinkling. So, we're going to put this in intermediate. Knit. In more common terms, probably known as t-shirt fabric. It's going to be very stretchy. soft. The big caveat though, because it is a stretch, you will have to use a stitch that kind of zigzags and will be able to flex a little bit or use a thread that has stretch in it. So, entirely different sewing process required for this, and for that reason, — I think we have our first hard mode. Ooh. Not only is velvet a nightmare to work with because when you cut it, there's just fuzz everywhere. You can't press this. The pile, the little fluffy bits of the velvet will just get crushed. You have to use a needle board, which is where you put the velvet face down on some needles in order to press every aspect of this garment. It's difficult to work with. It's going to want to move at the slightest touch. So, if you're trying to mark it out, good luck staying on grain. Soft velvet has to go in expert mode. Work with that at your peril.