Selecting Cotton Fabric

A pure, 100%-cotton fabric is the best fabric for beginning sewers; it’s easy to cut and to sew. Almost every type of fabric available can be made with cotton fibers. The challenge is selecting the right fabric for the project.

Lightweight cottons are best for shirts and dresses; medium-weight fabrics are suitable for pants, skirts, shirts, dresses, curtains, sheets and children’s clothes; heavier fabrics are used for pants, outerwear, window treatments and work clothes.

Purchase the highest quality cotton you can afford. Look for closely woven fabric with long, 1/2" fibers and

even yarns. Scrape the fabric with your fingernail, if the threads separate the fabric won’t wear well. To check the fiber length, pull a thread from the fabric and untwist it; if the fibers are at least 1/2" long, the fabric will wear well. Rub two fabric scraps together to see if the fabric pills. To check for color fastness, rub the colored fabric with a piece of white fabric; no dye should come off on the white fabric.

Better quality cottons don’t have a lot of sizing (a finish that makes the fabric appear firmer). As a fabric’s sizing dissipates with repeated washings, the fabric loses its crisp hand.

Preparing Fabric

Cotton fibers don’t shrink, but cotton fabric does, so preshrink the yardage. To preshrink, wash the fabric the same way you intend to launder the finished garment.

Make sure the fabric is on-grain; that is, that the crosswise and lengthwise threads are truly perpendicular to each other. If the cotton has a permanent finish, it’s not possible to straighten the grain. If the fabric has a print and the grain is off, the print may be skewed once you straighten the fabric.

Avoid print fabrics unless the threads are truly on-grain. If it’s difficult to tell the right side of the fabric from the wrong side, mark the wrong side with chalk to avoid confusion and a finished garment with shading differences.

Sewing Cotton

There are no hard-and-fast rules for sewing with cotton because there so many fabric types. If the fabric does require special sewing techniques, it’s because of the fabric type, not the fiber. Refer to fabric characteristics, such as ribbed or napped construction, decorative surfaces, loose weaves and fabric weight for sewing suggestions.

Use fabric weight as a guide when selecting the correct size needle and stitch length. Use a universal or standard-point needle on wovens, knits and synthetics. A ball-point needle is better for knit fabrics; the rounded tip slides between the knit loops instead of piercing them. Always test-stitch a sample seam on a scrap of the fabric. Use moderate tension on woven fabric, and reduce the tension on knits.

When choosing thread, try to match fabric and thread fibers. Cotton-wrapped polyester thread is fine for sewing cotton fabric. If you’re working with a very stretchy cotton knit, choose a 100% polyester thread because it stretches more than the cotton-wrapped polyester thread. When sewing woven cottons that don’t need to stretch, a 100% cotton thread is perfect. This thread is lovely to work with and, although not as durable as the other two, produces flat seams.