Fabric

You learn what a fabric actually is once you stop reading the name on the swatch tag: the construction, the weight, the width, and the calculations that decide how much you buy and what the garment costs.

After this track you can

You can read a woven or knitted fabric specification and predict what it will do: drape, stretch, shrinkage, seam performance, and cost per garment. You can calculate consumption from GSM and width, and judge a fabric in your hand against the spec somebody wrote for it.

6 courses · 10 h 43 min

2.1Woven Fabric ConstructionFoundation3 lessons · 1 h 52 minYou see how a woven cloth is built, and you read a mill's one-line fabric specification field by field. You learn what the construction predicts about consumption, cost, and what the garment will do.
2.2Knitted Fabric ConstructionFoundation3 lessons · 1 h 39 minYou see how a knitted fabric is actually built and why it behaves nothing like a woven. You do the arithmetic that turns a stitch length into a GSM, and a GSM into a cost per garment.
2.3Fabric CalculationsPractitioner3 lessons · 2 h 15 minYou do the arithmetic that decides how much fabric you buy, and therefore what the garment costs. You compare GSM against ounces, work consumption out from a marker and from a dozen weight, name the wastage that is real, and catch the width change that quietly makes a booking 3.5 percent short.
2.4Denim, Performance and Specialty FabricsPractitioner3 lessons · 1 h 55 minYou take on the fabrics that carry their own rules. You price denim by the ounce and judge it after the wash. You back every performance claim with a test report. And you see why pile and coated fabrics force a one-way marker, which takes more metres than the cost sheet allowed.
2.5Interlinings, Threads and TrimsPractitioner3 lessons · 1 h 42 minYou cover everything in the garment that is not the face fabric: the fused interlining, the sewing thread, and the buttons, zips, elastics, labels, and cords. And you see why two percent of the cost causes a disproportionate share of the failures.
2.6Reading a Fabric by HandPractitioner3 lessons · 1 h 20 minYou see what a swatch, a pick glass, a steel rule, and a balance can honestly prove about a fabric in five minutes. You learn which quick field tests are worth doing, and the exact point where hand stops and a laboratory report must start.

Track exam

12 questions drawn from a larger bank, across the courses in this track, passed at 70%. 3 attempts, then it locks for 7 days. It is worth finishing the courses first.

Sit the track exam