• How is the textile made?
• What is the fiber content?
• Does it have any special finishes or performances?

For this example we'll take a fleece. Fleece can be weft knits, warp knits, wovens or multi-layers. With this in mind, you can understand why we didn’t create a category named fleece, it would overlap other categories.

Plain weave

The face of the fabric is flat and uniform. its construction offers the possibility to conceive lighter weight textiles, though it can also be used in heavier textiles. It is, by construction, more sensitive to tearing than twill.

Twill weave

This construction offers a better resistance to tearing, compared to an equal composition of plain weave. It's easily recognizable by the diagonal texture on its surface, created by the float offsets.

Satin weave

This construction is mostly used with lustrous filaments and/or fibers. The floats, over or under 4 or more yarns, have the upside of revealing the shine of these yarns, but also the downside of rendering these materials sensitive to snag.

Complexe weave

This category includes jacquards and more complex woven structures. They are usually selected for their surface texture and visual effects. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. Just remember that the longer the floats are (over 3 yarns and more), the more sensitive to snags the fabric becomes.

Weft knits

Weft yarns interlacing horizontally. They can be knitted on single or double beds (frames). Single beds are called single knits and are mainly jersey, ribs, jacquard single knit, purl, etc. Double beds are named double knit and are mainly Interlock vertical, interlock horizontal (Ponte di roma) or jacquard double knit.

Warp knits

Warp yarns interlacing vertically. These knits tend to be less extendable, but more resistant to runs than weft knits. Warp knits are always flat knitted. They’re sometimes called Raschel knit, named after the type of machine used to do the knitting.

Non-Wovens

Randomly placed fibers or filaments (not yarns) that are maintained together by either glue, mechanically induced tangle or heat application (calendering). They are commonly used as filling layers, such as insulation, or as felts for outer shell fabrics.

Composed materials (multi-layers)

Multiple layers of different fabrics that are assembled together by a lamination process (glue) to become a single fabric. They can sometimes include a membrane, but not always. Other times, they can be used as double face fabrics. ** Please note that a coating, unlike the membranes, is not considered a layer. It’s a chemical finish that’s applied to a fabric. (see filters)

Of course, you can also choose to search by color. You can select different color filters such as color type, printed, yarn dyed pattern, closest Pantone and CIELAB.

You can also choose to search by fiber content. Please note that if you select more than one type of fibers, the search engine will expand to give you any textiles containing either fibers selected. It will not reduce the results to only show you textiles containing both fibers.