I start a new season of the podcast with each new session of my Textiles course. Rather than make students go back in time, I duplicate episodes from previous seasons, and put them in the proper order. Season 3 will start on January 20th, but I am going to release the first episode, on Fiber Properties, a bit early to whet your appetite. If you have been listening to Season 2, you can continue to enjoy the same content there, or you can start over with a new year and a new season. i will...

Water, stains, we can repel them all! Radiation, Fire, no problem!

Changing the properties of textiles is the goal of functional finishing.

Besides Luster and Hand, we can change the Design or Texture of fabrics.

Aesthetic finishes are used to change the look or feel of fabric by changing the luster or the hand.

Routine finishes include bleaching, ironing and tentering.

Printing and dyeing can have some quality issues that it is helpful to understand.

Direct printing also includes screen printing and inkjet printing while indirect printing solves a problem we have since the invention of synthetic polymers.

The methods used for printing have developed over time.

We can dye at different stages during the production process. We can use dyes to make designs in a process called “resist printing”.

How do we improve the affinity of dyes for fibers?

We give color to textiles using dyes and pigments.

We don’t need to use fibers to make nonyarn fabrics, we can just use polymers in solution or look to nature.

The nonyarn fabrics usually have fairly descriptive names.

We can make fabrics without using yarns.

Weft and warp knits don’t have warp or weft yarns, but they do go in different directions. The warp knits include tricot and raschel knits.

The weft knits include jersey, rib and purl knits.

Knits are far newer than wovens and borrow vocabulary from wovens.

Double cloths can use 3, 4 or 5 yarns instead of the usual two. Textured weaves, on the other hand, stick to familiar methods to create a subtle pebbly surface.

Pile weaves can be made in so many ways and produce so many fabrics, including velvet, velveteen and corduroy. Plus, let’s dig into carpet!