Re: Material and fiber questions

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 08:38:06 -0500, anne <frugalf@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm fabric illiterate and don't know what that is <sigh> Can a fabric
savvy person 'translate' into American English the shelf name for
polyester/viscose/flax?

-- polyester --

Polyester is the commonest synthetic. It has no stretch, which makes
it good for climbing ropes, kite strings, and permanent-press
clothing. (It can make a stretchy fabric, particularly when knitted,
because the fibers can be set into permanent crimps. Compare to steel
wire bent into a coil to make a spring.) Polyester gives off a
characteristic perfumy smell when heated.

Most perma-press clothing contains polyester. If a poly-cotton blend
is at least 60% cotton, it will look like cotton -- higher percentages
of polyester make the fabric pill like crazy -- but I, at least, find
even 10% polyester suffocating in summer clothes.


-- viscose --

Viscose is a type of rayon. According to Wikipedia, it's made by
<oversimplification> dissolving cellulose in lye, then extruding the
thick solution into an acid bath which neutralizes the lye and turns
the solute back into cellulose. </oversimplification>

Viscose, judging by the Wikipedia article and my vague impressions
(I'm not very interested in rayon except in the form of underwear that
hasn't been available since the 1960s.), is the commonest form of
rayon. Wikipedia says that cellophane was viscose, and a page linked
from that article suggests that cellulose sponges are viscose.

Nitrocellulose was, I believe, the earliest form of rayon. Since
another name for nitrocellulose is "guncotton," it was hastily
withdrawn from the garment market, and nowadays only stage magicians
use nitrocellulose fabric.

Other forms of rayon are cuprammonium, acetate, modal, and tencel.
"Art silk" is usually rayon. (I thought it was always rayon, but
Wikipedia says that other silky fibers are also sold as artificial
silk.) Rayon is very useful when you want the look of silk without
the expense but, in my experience, it doesn't wash worth a nickel.


-- flax --

Flax is the plant from which linen comes. The word "linen" is so
often used to denote a weave which looks like cheap, coarse,
low-quality linen that people who are selling the real thing are apt
to call it flax so that there shall be no mistake. (Compare "dairy
butter".)

Properly, linen is "line fiber". The short fibers sold as "linen"
today are tow, or line fiber "cottonized" by breaking it up into
tow-like pieces. (Tow is the short stuff that is rejected when
preparing line fiber.) Some linespun linen is still made on antique
machinery, but it's very rare and expensive.

Linen made into imitation cotton usually retains all of linen's
desirable qualities except for strength, durability, and freedom from
lint, but it can't be made into really-fine fabric or thread.
Cottonized linen musses even more than cotton, but shirting made of a
blend of cotton and linen musses very little and the wrinkles tend to
hang out; perhaps it's because cotton fibers twist one way and linen
fibers twist the other. My microscope is broken, so I can't check
this out.

Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.



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