Window Treatments Depot

So many soft furnishing fabrics are now available and often sofas, chairs and cushions are covered in fabric which is not suitable for the task. Before you choose your fabric you need to consider a few things. If the item you want to cover is in a living room and will get a lot of use, you need to look for a fabric that is closely woven without raised designs on them. The reason for this is that constant rubbing with clothing on these areas, such as denim jeans etc, will cause the pattern or threads to wear more quickly.

Some chenille fabrics and double jacquards (where two fabrics are fused together) are not good for heavy wear areas. Each fabric is usually supplied with a rub test (a machine that gives the number of rubs a fabric can take before it wears out). A heavy-duty rub test will give results of 80000-100000 or even more for heavy contract wear. Ask your supplier for details of the rub test before you buy. If however you find a fabric that you like, but know the rub test is not too high you can always buy extra fabric to replace cushions etc at a later date if it starts to wear. Always buy extra fabric anyway so that bits can be replaced.

Fabrics get discontinued and you may save yourself a lot of money if you can repair at a later date rather than recovering the whole lot. Soft, modern furniture helps fabric last longer rather than a hard-edged Victorian sofa might, where the fabric is pulled over the frame tightly. Linen and linen union is a hardwearing fabric. Some good quality cotton fabric can also last a long time for example Malabar Fabrics do excellent quality cotton (Bamboo). Thickness of fabric is no guarantee of how long the fabric will last.

Generally, it’s the quality of the fabric that matters. When choosing fabrics for loose covers you need to take into account how much the fabric will shrink if you intend to wash them. Many companies now recommend dry cleaning but often the fabrics are fine if you wash them. Take a 30cm square, measure it first then wash it and re -measure. This way you can work out the percentage shrinkage likely to occur and can make your covers slightly larger. Alternatively, wash the fabric before it’s made up. Difficult but possible if you cut into lengths.

Author: Jenny Aston

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