Stitches & Stuff: A sewing glossary for the unititiated
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:11 AM PST
By Marianne Binetti
Printable version
E-mail this articleMany years ago in the early days of this column, I wrote some instructions which included tearing fabric from selvedge to selvedge. When the column was printed it had been edited to "tear the fabric from salvage to salvage."
Those of us who sew use certain terms freely, but to non-sewers it may seem we’re speaking a foreign language. I have out together a glossary of sewing terms to help newcomers and the uninitiated. With the some of the terms, I owe thanks to "The Talking Thimble," a periodic newsletter from The Quilter store in Vancouver.
If you already know these, you can always share them with non-sewers.
Appliqué: Fabric, design or shape, stitched and/or fused to the right side of another fabric; style of quilting.
Basting: Large stitches made to hold fabric layers or seams in place temporarily, before doing final seams or sewing.
Bearding: When the batting fibers work their way through the top or bottom fabric layers of a quilt. It creates unsightly fuzz. Most often associated with inexpensive polyester battings, bearding can also happened with unbonded cotton.
Betweens: Small, thin needles used for quilting. Sizes range from 8 to 12, the smaller number being a longer length needle.
Blind hem: Stitch used to hold up the hem on heavy fabrics. This stitch can be done by hand or by machine, also used in appliqué.
Colorfast: Color which will not wash out, rub off or fade with normal use.
Directional Print: A fabric with a printed pattern that has a definite “up” and “down,” or grain. Care must be taken to match the direction when piecing.
Ease: To make two pieces of different sizes fit together in the same seam. Once piece may have to be stretched a little or bunched up slightly in order to get both pieces the same length.
Griege: From the French “grege” (raw silk) and the Italian “greggio” (grey), also called “grey goods” the term refers to woven textiles as they come from the loom, before they are dyed or printed and sold as finished goods.
Piling: Formation of groups of short or broken fibers on the surface of a fabric, which are tangled together in the shape of a tiny ball called a pill. Hydrophobic fibers tend to pill much more than hydrophilic fibers.
Selvedges (my old friend): The warp (long) edges of the fabric, finished and usually thicker than the rest of the fabric. Usually cut off when piecing into a quilt.
Strength: Some fibers are very strong, such as nylon and polyester. Others are weak, such as acetate and acrylic.
Trapunto: A dimensional design created by parallel outlining stitches that are then stuffed with yarn or batting.
Warp/Weft: The woven threads in the fabric. Warp threads are long and run from top to bottom in the length of the material. Weft threads run from side to side and are shorter.
Wickability: Ability of fiber to transport moisture.
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