Clothing, Fabrics, and Sensory Description

I know next to nothing about them. I'm trying to figure out what sort of material would go into a cut-off sleeve. A character cups another character's cheek, and I wanted that character to immediately recognize the kind of fabric, a soft fabric.

Then I started googling clothing materials, and had to figure out which was softer and more common: nylon, linen, cotton, rayon, spandex.

Suffice to say, I don't own one of each kind of fabric.

I suppose this thread could double as a general "need advice on what sort of clothing or fabrics would work best for sensory descriptions" thread.

Holy crap, this thread has been a long time coming! And yay for my embroidery because it means I work with fabric on a constant basis!

Pure cotton and linen are actually very hard to the touch when new—that's why denim is so tough. However, linen is pretty rare nowadays because flax isn't grown as much as it used to be. Most people's bed linens aren't literally made of linen anymore, they're usually made from a cotton/something blend. Decent linen clothing is about 50% linen, and really high-end pure linen clothing is expensive as fuck.

Linen is really good for summer clothing because it breathes well and it's very light. Plus it's really smoth. Cotton ranges from really heavy denim to very fine and smooth sheer fabric, but it gets crazy heavy when wet because it's so absorbent.

OLD linen and cotton, though? Like, "I had these jeans for five years" old? Really soft. That's why people find their favorite jeans so comfortable. Maybe the person's wearing a favorite shirt or jacket and that's why their sleeve feels soft for the other person.

Clothes are rarely made from pure cotton anymore precisely because it's so stiff and hard—even jeans would only be made of about 75-80% cotton, and the rest is usually nylon or rayon to soften it up. Thicker cotton fabrics are also damn heavy, which is another reason that cotton clothing is rarely pure cotton anymore.

Rayon and nylon are man-made fibers, and tend to be softer and sometimes slippery. Most modern clothes are guaranteed to be rayon or nylon.

Wool is also very soft, but it can get pretty heavy and so it's reserved for thicker winter coats. And it holds to the same rule that cotton and linen have: Most can afford 50% wool blends, but pure wool is reserved for high-end expensive material.

edited 14th Nov '14 11:30:59 AM by Sharysa

I disagree with a lot of what you said.

Linen and cotton don't have to be hard when they're new. When you've just gotten it from the fabric store, that hardness is sizing — starch, essentially. How hard the fabric is when it's unsized varies all over the place, and is more a function of how the thread was spun, the gauge of the thread (how thick it is) the weave pattern, and how tightly the fabric was woven (the thread count) than what the fiber is. New fabric is heavily-sized to make it easier to roll onto the bolts for shipping and sale.

Linen and pure cotton are both also easy enough to find with a little shopping (the internet has made it even easier than it used to be.)

There are fabrics that always have certain characteristics, though — nylon, being nylon, has a slickness and stiffness to it no matter what you do during the weaving — even nylon gauze is slicker and stiffer than cotton gauze or linen gauze.

There's no one particular material that a shirt with cut-off sleeves would necessarily be made of, although describing it that way makes me think of the sort of shirt a lumberjack or logger or such would wear, or the way a biker's shirt or jacket often has the sleeves cut-off roughly. In that case the fabric of the shirt would probably be a cotton or cotton-blend; a chambray, flannel or lightweight denim. Those are all soft fabrics; chambray and denim tend to be smooth, flannel is kind of fuzzy.

edited 14th Nov '14 5:50:11 PM by Madrugada

Huh, I didn't know about the sizing. Now I really want to find some unsized fabric and compare it to store-bought fabric.

And maybe expense depends on the area. Pure natural fibers are also frequently organic in/around San Francisco, so that probably contributes to the price.

edited 14th Nov '14 3:59:54 PM by Sharysa

Buy some and wash it. That removes the sizing. It's just starch...

In fact, if you sew, you know what can happen to fabric when you wash it the first time — that lovely crisp linen goes limp and body-less, that nice smooth cotton comes out of the dry looking like a rag. It even happens with neeedlepoint and cross-stitch fabric. It's almost like cardboard when it's new, but handle it, or wash it and ... well.

Oh, yeah, "organic" adds heaps to the price of natural fabric. I don't worry about it.

edited 14th Nov '14 5:49:10 PM by Madrugada

Hmm. I probably haven't experienced that yet because I'm not good enough to use really nice fabric yet, so I mostly practice on cheap stuff like muslin, which is rarely starched if at all. All my nice fabric is clothing already.

edited 14th Nov '14 7:20:12 PM by Sharysa