This week Yvette LIBBY continues to return with a blog that introduces everyone to a material that is highly applicable and often encountered in the fashion world.
It's Linen fabric.
- What is Linen ?
As one of the materials with long-standing origins, linen fabric has popular applications in garment technology or in interior and housing decoration applications. This material still retains a stable position, especially in the field of summer fashion apparel, despite the fabric market being extremely active by the appearance of many unique fabrics.
Now let's find out how this fabric is made…
- The Origin
Linen is a completely natural fabric. People take the stem of the flax plant – a plant that originates near the lakes in Switzerland – split into fibers and woven into cloth. The fibers are hand-woven and relatively large, each fiber can be seen on the surface of the fabric as well as felt by the hand very clearly.
Linen fabric is made from the fibers in the flax plant. These fibers are usually very sharp but they are easily damaged during harvesting, so harvesting flax requires advanced techniques and technologies.
The workers will strip the newly harvested flax into long strands. The fastest way is to use bacteria so that they can eat the outside of the stem. These soft fibers are then gathered and separated into long fibers, from which they can weave into fabric.
- Properties of linen fabric
Besides being popular for being a "representative" of green materials and the painstaking work of producing it, Linen is of course also famous for the wonderful properties it imparts when woven into fashion products. Some popular properties such as:
- The ability to absorb water is very fast and evaporates quickly
- The fabric has a strength of 5.5 - 6.5 gm/den, elongation is only about 2.7 - 3.5%
- Does not stretch or stretch during use
- Poor elasticity, easy to ruffle due to being woven from short flax fibers
- Heat resistant, good sun resistance, can be comfortably used outdoors
- Durable with water
- Eco-friendly with biodegradable properties
- Advantages and disadvantages
Linen fabric almost satisfies all fashionistas with the level of breathability it brings with the same advantages as:
- The ability to absorb and evaporate quickly helps the surface of the garment to always be dry as needed
- Linen is more resistant to heat and less susceptible to damage than cotton
- The fabric is smoother and softer than other materials
Besides the outstanding advantages, this fabric still has a lot of room for better development by improving some limited points such as:
- The fabric is prone to wrinkles during use
- Elasticity are not high
- Common Linen fabrics
- Powdered linen fabric: soft, easy to soften but when worn, it feels comfortable and comfortable for the skin. They are popular as clothing fabrics or used as curtains, blankets, pillows...
- Wet linen: they are commonly used to make fabrics that don't need too sophisticated textures like curtains
- Tufted linen fabric: the fabric is more durable, smoother, and has the great advantage of being able to keep the color of the fabric for a long time.
- Silk linen fabric: brings a certain softness, often used to sew shawls with many colors and beautiful designs
- Scratched linen fabric: has a scratched weave that creates its own characteristics with a light and thin fabric surface. Often used to sew thin vest or pants…
- Application of linen fabric in life
With organic origin with extremely good absorbency, the smooth surface is gentle to the skin making them suitable for making soft and comfortable bed sheets. In addition, durable properties, the more you wash it, the softer it becomes. Therefore, they are very suitable for sewing tablecloths and hand towels.
A number of suitable fabrics for you to choose from, such as tufted linen or corduroy linen, are created in a square shape for sofa sets. Especially when using this fabric to cover the chair, you can see that the longer you use it, the more shiny and soft it will be, without ruffled hair.
The advantage of this fabric is its high softness. Suitable for sewing a number of costumes such as: dress, shirt…
This is the same material commonly used by fashion houses and fashion brands in environmentally sustainable and green designs.
- How to identify Linen fabric?
Fabrics are very smooth, lint-free and they get softer with repeated washing
In terms of color, they are not pure white. The original color of linen is ivory white, rustic, fawn or gray.
The fabric, when burned, will burn very slowly and will not bleed because the flax fiber is hollow. Smells like burning paper, the ash after burning is as soft as the ashes of cotton yarn.
Here are some features for you to identify clothes made from this fabric.
- Methods of preservation
Yvette LIBBY will give you some tips to increase the "life" of linen clothes or products:
- After washing is done, you just need to dry it naturally and then use it as usual instead of ironing
- Avoid washing clothes made of linen with hot water (above 40 degrees Celsius). Use warm or cold water instead.
- If the shirt is colored, wash it in cold water to prevent it from fading
- Use only detergent with a low concentration of bleach
- Air drying is the best way if you want to dry linen clothes.
- Conclusion
Yvette LIBBY can see that you have understood a bit about Linen material, which is familiar to the fashion world. Hope you will choose the right outfit for you with this extremely absorbent and environmentally friendly material.
Oh, and don't forget to take a look around to check out Yvette LIBBY's Linen designs, with various styles and designs ranging from outerwear to jumpsuits...
See you in next blogs…