14-Day Learn to Sew Series - Fabric Basics Knits

Now that you've learned some of the basics about woven fabrics, let's talk about knits for a bit. All right, what do we know about knits? Probably the first word you're thinking of is stretch, right? Knits stretch. And that's generally true, but not always. But knits really encompass a big family of fabrics. Like I think I mentioned in wovens, that for instance, fake fur is a knit fabric. It is. So there's just a whole big world, and there's probably a lot of things that you didn't even realize were knit fabrics. So how is this interesting fabric made? How is it different from a woven? Well, we talked about with woven fabrics, how in woven, you have your warp yarns, and your weft yarns. And you have a shuttle that goes back and forth, and creates that fabric. Well, a knit is created using continuous loops of a yarn. Instead of having warp and weft, you have, for single and double knits, there's an exception to this, of course. But for the most part, it's a yarn that goes back and forth, around and around, depending on the machine, to create interlocking loops. So not over/under, it's interlocking loops. Now, there's three main types. Now again, it's kind of a big family. But there are three main types to our knit fabrics. Single knits, double knits, and basically lace-type knits. All right, again, there's some variation, but we're gonna stick with that for now. So, what do we mean by that? So single knits, this is what you're probably most familiar with. And they're very stretchy. And this is single knits are our cotton T-shirts. Your basic T-shirt is made from jersey. Usually jersey is really the, in commercial terms, so a cotton jersey, or any kind of jersey, not matter what it's made from, polyester, cotton, linens, silk, whatever. But jersey knits are a single knit. And what that means is, that when the knit fabric is created, you have the knit side of the stitch on one side, and you have the pearl side of the stitch, or pearl side of the loop on the backside. So if you do hand knitting, if you're familiar with hand knitting, jersey is what you would call stock and net stitch, all right? In the hand knitting world. And it really is a single layer of these continuous loops. So, this is a jersey knit I have here in front of me. And it has some interesting performance characteristics in addition to the fact that it is a single layer fabric. So if you were able to look, I'm not sure my camera can quite pick it up. But if I was, maybe if it was a larger knit. I don't think it's gonna be able to pick it up. But basically this side, the face side would be smooth, that's the knit side of the stitch. And then the bump, the loop, the pearl side is on the back. But it makes jersey do some interesting things. So one characteristic of jersey knits is that when we sew with jersey knit, this one is pretty wide. That when we pull on a jersey knit, it tends to curl in one direction or another. Let me do this actually on the close-up. So jersey knits are kind of notorious for curling, which really makes it sometimes difficult to sew. This is a printed jersey. Here is the non-printed border. So I know that this is the lengthwise direction. There's still kind of grain in knits, in that there's a lengthwise across bias direction. Much knits stretch more on the crosswise direction. But you can see when I pull on this fabric, do you see how it rolls to the backside in the lengthwise direction? Now, on the front here, if I pull on the crosswise direction, do you see how it curls to the front? So that's something that's very particular to jerseys, is that they'll tend to roll to the back on the lengthwise direction, when stretched. And then, they'll roll to the front on the crosswise direction. I use spray starch to tame my jerseys to make them easier to cut and sew. But they're very stretchy, which means they're pretty forgiving to sew. I wouldn't want to scare you off of jerseys, because they really are pretty awesome fabrics. But now, the easiest knits to sew are double-knits. Now this is, this particular double-knit I have in front of me, says that it's a ponte. Ponte is short for ponte de roma, it's just a fancy name for a type of fairly smooth, smooth-featured double-knit. Now rib-knits, we call it rib knit, where you kind of have those bumps, those ribs. That is also a double-knit. So when a double-knit is knitted, there's actually, it's difficult to tell, but the way it's knitted is on what's called a double-bed machine. And so you have rows of those needles that make that continuous loop. 'Cause it basically kind of looks like a latch hook from on a rug. So when those loops are made, you actually have a set of needles in front, and needles in back. So that the loops are interlocking as it's being knitted. So, it's a balanced fabric because the pearl stitches are all interlocked in between, in the middle. And then, the knit stitches are facing outward on both the front and back. And so another word that you might here related to a double-knit is an interlock. It's an interlocked knit. So interlock knit, double-knit, ponte, they're all double-knits. Okay so, it can get kind of confusing. But because of that stability, because of the way that they interlock, it's a really stable fabric. So it doesn't curl like a jersey does, or a single-knit does. This would be like if you hand knit, this is more like a garter stitch. Only the garter stitch is pearl stitches facing outward on both sides. But, it's kind of that idea, it's balanced. But, double-knits vary a lot of terms of stretch. Meaning, single-knits always stretch. But, double-knits, a lot of them are very stable. In other words, they don't stretch much in the lengthwise direction. So, here's kind of the salvage, so to speak. So it has, this has some stretch to it. Sometimes that's a fiber thing. It might have some spandex in it, or polyurethane, also known as Lycra. that's another brand name for polyurethane. So it has some give in the lengthwise, this particular one. But it has a lot more stretch in the widthwise. And that's really typical. A lot of double-knits are much stretchier in the widthwise, then they are in the lengthwise. And that makes them, since most of our seams are generally going down the body, those are lengthwise. It makes them really easy to sew, because they don't misbehave, they don't stretch very much on that lengthwise direction. So if you want to learn to sew knits, start with double-knits. Start with a nice ponte, or a nice interlock. And you're going to have more success. That's just a great place to start. Now another main type that I mentioned, is our lace knits. Now this isn't so much a lace, this is actually a mesh. And they kind of vary in degrees of stretch. But a lot of our lace knits and meshes have a little bit different structure. Often times, this one has a fair amount of stretch because of the fiber it's made from. But, it's actually fairly stable. And a lot of lace knits are fairly easy to sew, except for that open structure. Because sometimes you're basically sewing in air, there's nothing there to support your stitches. And so your laces are knits that you're going to want to sew, sometimes using say, a wash-away stabilizer to make it easier, to give some support where they're aren't any stitches, and you're basically sewing on air. So that's just a little bit to think about, where you think about choosing a knit fabric for sewing. Now one nice thing about sewing with your knit fabrics, is that they don't fray. Okay, knit fabrics can run, if you've ever worn hosiery, and got a, received a snag and had it run down your leg. You know that knit fabrics can run, all right? Because of the interlocking loops, but they don't fray. So you don't usually have to, unless it's for appearance sake, you don't really have to think too much, or worry too much about your seam finishes, because knits don't fray. And so, that's why they lend themselves well to even using raw edge effects, or using just a raw edge trim, made of a knit, to even wrap and finish a woven edge. So knits really are a fun, fun family of fabric to work with. And I hope you give it a little, a try sometime. Venture out, don't be afraid of them. Remember, you're going to be learning some special seams just for sewing knits in this class. So please, give them a try.