The Fabric Spec Check

Check a fabric before you order the roll: every quoted weight turned into grams per square meter, each plied yarn counted once, the cover checked against full cover, a swatch weighed big enough for your scale, every price on one basis, and the length bought for the washed cloth

Plabric's free calculators each work one number: the Thread Count calculator adds the ends and picks it is given, the Fabric Weight Converter squares GSM and oz/yd2, and the Fabric Yardage Calculator takes shrinkage inside one waste percentage on the unwashed width. None of them knows that a weight quoted per linear yard grows with the width, that a count made by counting plies passes through doubled, or that cloth shrinks across as well as along. Writing this kit we also fixed the thread count tool: its cloth cover formula ran past full cover, so a doubled count printed less cover than the honest one; it now stops at 28 and flags the count. This kit checks a fabric against itself before you order. In its worked example three suppliers quote one cotton sateen. Supplier A's 15 oz per linear yard at 110 in is 166.4 GSM, only 6.7% heavier than Supplier B's 4.6 oz/yd2. A's label says 600 thread count; under a pick glass it is 170 ends and 130 picks of 2-ply yarn, which the FTC letter's form writes as 300 thread count, 2 ply yarn. A 50 cm swatch on a 1 g scale weighs 180 GSM within 2, above the 174.4 GSM floor the yarns demand and above the quoted weight. Priced on one basis, B is cheapest per yard and dearest per square meter, and C wins the square meter by under two cents but loses the job by $6.81 because it shrinks more. For 30 m2 of washed pieces the order is 14 1/2 yd, where the yardage tool alone says 12.14 m. Every figure is computed by code from the site's own tools and is an example for you to replace. The thread count rule is quoted from the ASTM test method via the FTC's 2005 staff letter; the kit makes no feel, health or flammability claim and says plainly that children's sleepwear fabric has its own federal flammability tests. Included: seven steps, four working pages (quote leveling sheet, swatch test sheet, buy sheet, supplier question card), reference tables and a quickstart, plus a personalised sheet worked from the numbers in your calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the kit, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• Step 1: every quoted weight squared, oz per linear yard at its width turned into GSM and oz/yd2
• Step 2: thread count with each plied yarn counted once, as the ASTM method says, and the FTC letter's label form
• Step 3: warp, weft and cloth cover with the resultant yarn count, checked against full cover (28)
• Step 4: a swatch cut big enough for your scale, and what a short cut does to the reading
• Step 5: the construction floor, the weight the ends, picks and yarns demand, against your weighed swatch
• Step 6: every quote priced per square meter and per kilogram, and the roll's cloth weight checked
• Step 7: the length for the washed cloth, divided by what the wash keeps across and along, rounded once, and the whole job priced from each supplier
• Four working pages: quote leveling sheet, swatch test sheet, buy sheet, supplier question card
• Reference tables: one weight quoted per linear yard at four widths, and cotton yarn counts with tex and the ends per inch at full cover
• A quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from your own calculator inputs

The kit picks up where the free Thread Count & Cover Factor Calculator and Fabric Weight from Dimensions leave off. They work one number at a time; the kit checks a fabric before you order the roll: every quoted weight turned into grams per square meter at its width, the thread count counted with each plied yarn once, the cover checked against full cover, a swatch cut big enough for your scale, the weight the yarns themselves demand, every price per square meter and per kilogram, and the length bought for the washed cloth, both ways. Every figure in it is an example for you to replace.