At the end of last week I received two emails about whether the 38 count (also known as 20L) linens which are on the market are evenweave or not.
Let’s start with a definition of evenweave:
Evenweave linen means that over the same direction across both the weft and warp of the fabric there are the same number of threads. Therefore if you measured a distance across the weft of the fabric (to remember which one that is, it is from left to right or side to side across the fabric – and left rhymes with weft) of say 10cm or 4 inches, and counted up all the threads, in theory they should match the number of threads over the same distance of the warp (down the length of the fabric).
I will say this next point very emphatically: evenweave has nothing to do with whether some threads are thicker or thinner than others. Slubs in the linen have no bearing on whether the fabric is evenweave. Now that we have also established what evenweave is not, let’s go back to the effect it has practically.
If the quantity of threads over the same distance differ, then the linen is not evenweave. But are there really many “evenweave” linens that are truly evenweave and have exactly the same quantity of threads over the same distance on both dimensions of the fabric? Not often!
If this is the case, what can we consider evenweave, and what would we not consider to be evenweave?
If the thread quantities differ only slightly e.g. over a distance of say 10cm/4inches, there is a difference of only a 2 or 3 threads, then that’s actually pretty good, and probably as good as you can hope for.
If they differ by about 10 or more over that distance, then that’s not a great result, and I would definitely not consider the linen to be evenweave.
Why is evenweave important? Sometimes evenweave is not important. If you’re working on the surface of the fabric, and not counting threads to determine the placement of stitches, then it does not matter at all. However if you’re working counted embroidery, where the placement of stitches IS determined by the number of threads you’ve counted over, then it can be important.
For counted embroidery, usually the time that it has the most effect is if you’re working square designs. If your square is meant to span 100 threads, and on one dimension of the fabric that 100 threads spans 10cm, and on the other it takes only 8cm to span 100 threads, then your square is not going to be very square!
If your fabric seems to be nearly evenweave (say with a difference of only 1-2 threads over 1 inch), then will it be ok? If you’re only making a small embroidery, which spans only a small distance, such as 7cm or 3 inches, then a difference of 2 or 3 threads over that whole distance is not going to show up much. It will mean that if the design is supposed to be square, it will just turn out slightly rectangular, but probably not noticeably so.
But, if you’re making a large embroidery, such as the tablecloth in my book, then any difference in the thread count is going to show up much more over that very large distance.
When 10cm and a difference of 10 threads is multiplied out over a large distance e.g. 70cm (so that would be 70 extra threads over one dimension), you can see that it makes a very noticeable effect. A square pattern would not turn out square on the fabric!
When 10cm and a difference of 2 threads is multiplied out over a large distance e.g. 70cm (with an extra 14 threads over one dimension), you can see that it is not so noticeable. It IS different, but probably not so different that you can’t live with it.
Tomorrow we will look at the 38 count linens that I am familiar with, and how they rate as evenweave.
If there was any part of today’s post that you didn’t understand, please ask questions. This is actually a really important concept for most counted thread embroidery.
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
Yvette, are you counting the warp and weft before or after washing?
Now that’s a great question. I never wash my linen before stitching on it, and it is only in recent times that I would wash it afterwards. So I count before washing. What do you do?
I never wash before I stitch either unless I’m worried about color fastness. This was a great post and I can’t wait for part 2.
Hi Chris, there might even be a part 3, the day after! So much to look forward to. 😉
I’m about half and half… it seems to depend on how anxious I am to get started. However, when I asked this question I was thinking that usually they tell you different shrinkage percentages for warp and weft and I wondered if it all evens out in the end or gets more out of square?
Jeanine, maybe this question will morph into part 4 of the series… 🙂
Just for your info: Stefania Bressan tells me that Sotema 20L shrinkage is 7% for the warp and 4% for the weft.
????
This probably doesn’t clear up anything but I thought it was interesting.
I am an embroiderer, but also a weaver. People should always keep in mind that the weft runs between the selvedge edges and not just left to right because that is dependent on how you have laid the fabric down on the table. Also, to weavers, a fabric is generally not considered ‘finished’ until it has been washed and then ironed/pressed/steamed.
Having the warp threads on the loom ready to weave will stretch them out a bit, generally very little with real linen, a little more so with cotton and silk (depending a LOT on the way the yarn is spun), and a lot more so with wool(less with worsted wool and more with woolen). Once the fabric comes off the loom, the yarn relaxes and every warp thread gets closer to its neighbors, increasing the thread count per inch.
With washing or finishing of some sort, it can shrink more and/or be pulled out and finished into place such as what happens with ironing and starching. Often they will both happen.
Consider what you see when you wash tablecloths and serviettes/napkins. You wash them and the fabric relaxes, everything wrinkles a bit and it all becomes softer and scrunched together a bit. It even becomes fatter because the yarns bloom (become fatter) when it absorbs water. But when you starch it and iron it flat, the fabric not only becomes flatter, it becomes larger again as a result and the starch holds it there.
One factor that can affect the thread count in the warp direction (the number of wefts per inch) is the beat or how close together the loom pushes the weft threads when it pushes them into place. Since most of us would be using cloth woven on a mechanized loom, we expect the beat to be consistent throughout. That is, the number of wefts per inch never varies and it is always the same, no matter which square inch of fabric you are looking at. The beat can vary a lot in handwoven fabrics, though in truly well-woven fabric it should not. The beat is a very critical element to the skill of the handweaver.
One really simple way to see if the cloth is evenweave would be to examine the holes between the threads of the cloth. If the hole is square, the distance between the threads is the same, and therefore the cloth is evenweave. This only works for plain weave fabrics (each individual weft goes over one warp thread and under one warp thread throughout). Remember though that a small variation in the sides of the square can account for a thread or more across 4 inches. If you insert a pin that just fits into the ‘hole’ between the threads and it cannot move from left to right but can up and back, the cloth is not evenly woven.
A lot of times, you really wouldn’t want to change the finish of the cloth by pre-washing, would you? I never do. I’ve always just taken it as given that the cloth is intended to be used as is. An exception is when you expect to wash the cloth after it has been embroidered and used, such as with table linens. Then it could be really disappointing to wash your work and find it changes quite a lot after washing!
Thanks for this interesting discussion!
So maybe this is a really stupid question, but I’ll ask it anyway. Why don’t you wash the fabric before you stitch? Doesn’t it shrink if you wash it afterward and then the embroidery puckers? I’ve been trained as a sewer (I don’t quite like the look of that word!) so I always wash natural fiber cloth to reduce shrinkage and color bleeding.
Yes, it is interesting, Jeanine. Thanks!
Thank you for your contribution to the discussion, Marilyn! It is very interesting to have the point of view of a weaver.
Hi Cynthia, that’s not a stupid question! My answer is “I don’t know why.” I was never taught to prewash my embroidery linen, though I was taught to prewash dressmaking fabric. In regards to colour bleeding, that’s not usually an issue for me, because much of my work is white on white – as it is here in this discussion of fabrics for Portuguese Whitework.
I DO wash my polycotton fabric for Mountmellick, though not my cotton fabric. I have heard from others that if you pre-wash the 100% cotton satin jean for Mountmellick that it becomes practically impossible to get your needle through, because as Marilyn suggested in her comment, the fibres relax and get fatter.
Perhaps pre-washing has not been something I’ve ever done because much of my work has not been washed afterwards either. It is really only when I’ve started using wash out pencils that need to be washed out at the end that I’ve needed to wash afterwards (and it has not been a problem so far). My Hardangers have never needed washing, and that’s what I started out with, so maybe that’s where my not-prewashing has come from. I think this will be an interesting discussion to have formally, once the evenweave 38 count linen topic has been exhausted.