Know Your Knits. My Knits. All Knits. Part Two.

With the recent arrival of DeutscheHaul, I've added another couple of fibre types to the mix. Part One of Know Your Knits covered Cotton Interlock, Bamboo Interlock and Cotton Jersey, now lets update the comparison with Organic Cotton Jersey and Velour.

Here they are all together. As you can see, there are varied levels of curl:

The Appletree organic jersey (and the Robot organic jersey not pictured) has some curl, but not as much as the straight cotton jersey blends. It also has a much smoother finish, which you can't tell from the pictures but will just have to trust me on. The difference between the curliness of the cotton jerseys is mainly dependant on the overall weight of the fabric. I find the LiandLo prints (Cool Cats and Astronauts) slightly heavier than the JNY prints (clouds and stars).

The velour fabrics are obviously heavier than any of my other fabrics so despite the considerable spandex component (20%), the curl is minimal. Notice anything different about the curl? All of the jerseys curl to the right side, and the velour to the wrong side! How about that, fellow fabric geeks?

Another thing to remember with velour is that you need to be more wary with the iron. In the picture above, I folded a scrap in half and pressed it with stream as I would with other knits. As you can see, the crease is very sharp and the nap is altered (not to mention the tiny circles from the iron plate). It's hard to undo this once done. Velour doesn't require ironing very often (if ever), but if you must, iron from the wrong side with lower heat and with something padded underneath the right side to preserve the pile.

Speaking of the pile, it does create a bit of a mess when you cut it. I don't recommend sewing in a sweater dress and black tights. Overall, both the organic cotton jerseys and the velours are a dream to sew.

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