Guest Post:Things Come Full Circle

Hi! I recently started at Promotional Partners and thought I’d share my small moment of how life has come full circle. I graduated from North Carolina State University’s Wilson College of Textiles. At that time, I was in the Textile Technology program which was a manufacturing focused track. 

Some of the terminology I learned then that I am now coming across are:

1.       Hand of fabric: Quality or characteristic of fabrics perceived by sense of touch. Some synonymous terms might be softness, firmness or drapability.

2.       Wicking: Dispersing or spreading of moisture or liquid through a given area by capillary action in a fabric.

3.       Water proof: Keeps outside moisture from penetrating the fabric. The waterproof rating is typically expressed in milliliters based on water pressure tolerance over a 24hr period.

4.       Snag: Created when a sharp or rough object pulls, plucks, scratches, or drags a group of fibers, yarn, or a yarn segment from its normal pattern.

5.       Water repellent: A fabric's ability to cause moisture to bead up and roll off a garment.

I find these terms interesting because they are common enough that if you don’t already know them, once explained you can still relate it back to a previous experience where you were unknowingly evaluating it. In the College itself were many pieces of heavy machinery, including one that conducted the Uster Evenness test.

What is this you ask?  The evenness of yarn is one of main indexes to measure the quality of yearns. The unevenness of yarns will deteriorate the mightiness of yarns, and increase the end breakage rate in the spinning, and the increase of the end breakage rate will directly limit the speed of the machines and reduce the productivity.

Why should I care you ask? The unevenness of yarns will seriously influence the appearance quality of textiles, which will in turn affect any finish that might be placed on it, like waterproofing, or the appearance of a logo if being dyed on.

A great example of this would be the M-Dade polo I saw in the showroom.

It's snag resistant, has UV protection, has wicking properties, and is perfect for multiple decoration methods (like in the photo above).

While an embroidered logo is classic, a new decorating trend I learned about sitting in on a consultation is laser etching. It is a decorating process that burns a pattern into the top layer of fabric, giving it a subtle tone-on-tone appearance like this!

If hand is a fabric's properties related to touch, then haptic sensing is the sensory information we get from touching a product. I find myself constantly walking into the showroom to check out products whenever I have a question about it's properties - apparently I am a tactile person.

I am excited to see what other dots I can connect back to previous experiences!

                                                                                  Jessica

* These types of decoration processes will be featured at our May Showcase- follow your newsletter for details.