Fabric Search

How to Search by Fabric

Type the fabric category of interest first: knit fabrics, woven fabrics, jersey fabric and so on. The index below covers corduroy, cotton, digital printing fabrics, flannel, jacquard, jersey, knit, madras, nonwoven, nylon, polyester and poplin, and continues with printed, reflective, ringspun cotton, silk, terry, twill, velour, wool, woven and yarn-dyed fabrics, plus yarn itself. Each topic opens a small guide of its own.

Fabric names overlap, and the index respects that. Cotton is a fiber, twill is a weave and jersey is a knit construction, so the same cloth can legitimately appear under more than one topic. If your fabric sits at an intersection — a cotton twill, a polyester jersey, a wool flannel — check both relevant guides rather than assuming one is the correct home. Designers also search by end use, which is why the index carries interior fabrics and furniture fabrics alongside the construction-based topics, and a guide to good fabric suppliers for readers whose real question is where to buy well.

Add Weight, Finish and Construction

A fabric name alone rarely specifies a purchasable cloth. Feel free to list the weights and finish that you desire alongside the category: grammage or ounces per square yard, width, and finishes such as brushed, mercerised, water-repellent, flame-retardant, pre-shrunk or garment-washed. Construction details sharpen the search further — single or double jersey, wale count on corduroy, momme on silk, twill line direction, or whether a cotton is ringspun. Two fabrics with the same name and different weights behave like different materials in cutting, sewing and wear, so the weight is not a detail to add later; it is part of the fabric's identity.

The original Fabric Search advice still holds: be as specific as possible. If you are looking for a mill and you know the weight of the jersey knit fabric you desire, a query along the lines of a stated gram weight plus jersey knit fabric mills will outperform a bare fabric name every time. Specifics filter out the retail results when you want production sourcing, and filter out the industrial results when you want a few yards. If a first search is too narrow and returns little, drop the finish first, then the weight, and keep the fabric and supplier type — those two terms do the most work.

Choose the Supplier Type

If you are searching for mills, retailers or wholesalers, be certain to add that to your search query, because the three channels sell differently. Mills manufacture fabric and deal in production quantities, often to order, with minimums, lead times and greige or finished goods to discuss. Wholesalers and distributors hold stock ranges and sell smaller production quantities to garment makers and smaller brands. Retailers sell cut yardage by the yard or metre to makers, quilters and consumers, with colour choice and small quantities as the attraction. The Fabric Search topic guides mirror those channels with separate mills, wholesalers and stores pages.

Beyond this section, Apparel Search carries the same split at directory scale: the fabric mills directory, the wholesale fabric guide and the fabric retailers directory. Use the topic guides here when you know the fabric and want suppliers who specialise in it; use the main directories when you want the widest possible list for a channel. The Textile Mill 17 pages and the Fabric Links page round out the section with further textile resources.

Learning Before You Buy

Fabric Search is also a learning tool, for sewing fabric by the yard at retail as much as for production sourcing. Reading about a fabric before buying it — how it drapes, shrinks, presses, frays and wears — prevents the most common and most expensive mistake in both home sewing and garment development: the right fabric name in the wrong weight or finish. The main page of each topic guide explains the fabric itself, and the links pages point onward to definitions, fiber background and textile industry resources across Apparel Search, including material on textiles for sewing clothing, fashion accessories and other products.

Work through a topic in order if the fabric is new to you: the main page for what it is, the links page for deeper reading, then mills, wholesalers or stores when you are ready to source it. Keep notes on the weights and finishes you looked at, because fabric buying generates near-identical names that differ in one number, and a written record is what turns a browsing session into a specification you can hand to a supplier. We hope the resources listed on this website are of assistance, whether you work in the textile industry, the fashion industry, or are sewing your first garment.