Different Types Of Woven Fabric Used In Garments & Fashion Industry (Part -03)

Flannel:

Flannel is a woollen fabric woven in plain or twill weave having characteristic soft handle. It looks like a bulky fabric due to the milling that is usually done to this fabric. Flannel fabric is used for suits and pants and infacnt's clothing.

This fabric is popular as cleaning fabric due to its extreme softness. This is also used to protect children from cold atmosphere.

Gabardine:

Gabardine is a closely woven, clear finished warp faced twill fabric. It contains more number of warp yarns than weft yearns and also more durable. It is usually woven in 2/1 or 2/2 twill and has a raised diagonal twill effect on the right side. It largely used for rain coats, suitings and sports wear.

Georgette:

Georgette is a sheer light weight fabric, woven in plain weave. It has a characteristic rough texture produced by hard twisted ply, yarns both in warp and weft. Originally it was made in silk, but today it is produced in rayon and polyester too.

It's mainly suitable for women's evening wear.

Kashmir Silk

Kashmir silk is a silk fabric produced in plain weave and is either embroidered or printed. The motifs used are characteristic of Kashmir. It is used for shirts, women's wear and sarees. Kashmir shawls are woven in twill weave and is usually embroidered with traditional Kashmiri embroidery.

Khadi:

Khadi is a term used to a wide variety of fabics that are hand spun and hand woven. They are produced in mainly one cotton fibre, blends of two or more fibres. They are known for durability, and simplicity. The fabrics can be suitings dhoties overalls and household textiles.

Lawn:

Lawn is a fine sheet, light weight, crisp fabric either made in cotton or linen. Various finishes are given to this fabric, in which the fabric is called by the name of the finish. It is mainly used as lining in dress.

To be Continued.................

Different Types Of Woven Fabric Used In Garments & Fashion Industry (Part -02)

Chintz:

Chintz is a medium weight, plain woven cotton yarn. It is often given a glazed finish which may be temporary or semi permanent glazed chintz are available in solid colour as well as printed with floral prints. These are often made from blends of cotton and polyester or rayon. They are used for skits, dresses, blouses, pyjamas, aprons and draperies.

Corduroy:

It is a cut pile fabric available in solid colours. The cut pile fibres are seen in the form of ribs on the surface. It is mainly used for pants, jeans and shirts.

Crepe:

A silk fabric is originally characterised by a crinkle, puckered surface formed by highly twisted yarns in the warp or weft or both. By using ordinary yarns similar crepe effects can also be produced. Synthetic fabrics also impart crepe effect finish. It is used for sarees, shirts, women and children's dresses.

Denim:

It was traditionally a yarn dyed, warp faced cotton twill fabric. Warp is usually coloured (mostly blue, maroon, green and brown) and weft is white. This fabric is made of two weights for sports wear and overalls. It's use as jeans has made it very popular and so the nature of denim is also changed to suit the trend. It is often napped, printed and made with stretch yarn.

Drill:

It is a warp faced twill woven fabric. It has a stiff finish. Originally it was produced in white and now it is available in solid colours. It is mairly used for pants, knickers and uniforms.

To be Continued.................

Different Types Of Woven Fabric Used In Garments & Fashion Industry (Part -01)

Buckram:

It is a stiff coated fabric made from a light weight loosely woven fabric, impregnated with adhesives and fillers. This fabric is used as interfacing so as to provide support and shape rentention to necklines, collars, belts, cuffs, waist bands, button closures etc in garments. They are also used as reinforcements for hand bags and other articles.

Cambric:

Cambric a light weight fabric woven in plain weave and produced with a stiff finish. It is suitable for women's dresses and children's dresses that require crispness.

Casement:

Casement is a medium weight cotton fabric made of closesly packed thick warp yarns. Generally it is used for curtains, tablelinen, upholstery and rarely used for dresses.

Cheese Cloth:

It is popular light weight sheer fabric having open weave. It has a low count fabric consisting of carded yarns. Originally it was used for wrapping cheese or meat and hence the name. It is neither strong nor durable. It is finished in a variety of ways that attract the consumer. It is used not only for women's and children's dresses but also for drapery fabrics. Due to its open structure, it does not require much ironing.

Chiffon:

Chiffon fabrics are sheer, light weight fabrics made of hard twisted yarns. Originally these are made in silk fabrics but today they are made from rayon or polyester. They are used for sarees and women's evening wear. The fabrics encounter with the problem of shrinkage.

To Be Continued...........

DIFFERENT TYPES OF DENIM GARMENTS WASHING-(Part 02)

After Part 01,

Potassium Permanganate Sponging/ Brushing: 

PP Spray is being done on denim garments to achieve local abraded area to appear whiter than back ground indigo color shade. This can be applied by sponges dipped in to PP Solution & rubbed on desired area followed by neutralization in wet process. This process can be done in rigid after doing hand scrape or in the middle of the wash. Doing after enzyme or bleach cycle will give more natural & white effect that doing in rigid. There are many additives can be added in order to achieve desired intensity and look.

In usual, it is done with regular paint brushes or the brushes are modified by cutting hairs in different shapes to produce new styles. Rather towels, sponges, straw bunches or other objects are also used to create effects. What it is seen, is that most merging and beautiful effects are created with towel. Towel dipped in solution are drawn over the garment very lightly. This produces random effect and looks great with dark washes in contrast.

This process is very complicated & needs highly skilled operators to execute it followed by immediate neutralization.

Tinting:

Tinting is a process where very less amount of tint is involved & mainly direct dye is being used to do this process. This is being done to change hue/cast/tone of indigo. As soon as quantity of tint color increases & it cover up indigo, reaches the level of dyeing. Tinting being used to give garments a used / vintage & muddy look. These processes takes from 5 minutes to 25 minutes time for better results followed by dye fixing & clean up of superficial dye.

Bleach Wash:

Bleach wash or light stone wash refers to light blue shades of denim. The additional step is bleaching to stone wash. This bleaching is usually carried out by strong oxidizing agents. In industry, most widely used chemicals are sodium hypo-chlorite, calcium hypochlorite, hydrogen per oxide and potassium permanganate. Other than that many products with different brand names are available in market.

Caustic wash:

Caustic wash generally doing on Reactive dye, Sulphur dye, Direct dyed or printed Garments

Caustic wash is required for the following reasons:

• ·         To fading/old looking affect on Garment and seam abrasion affection seam area.
• ·         To remove the size materials, starch from the garments.
• ·         To increase the color fastness & rubbing fastness.
• ·         For soft feeling to wear the garments.
• ·         To increase the hairiness on garments.
• ·         To achieve the buyer reference sample.

To Be Continued.............

Fabric Inspection Procedure and Cutting Approval (Part Two)

Fabric is the main raw material for apparel industry and it takes 60-70% of total garment manufacturing cost. Once any fabric consignment received by factory material department, they have to sent those to cutting QC within 48 hours to make shade separation, lab test and physical inspection etc. To ensure that only quality fabric is using in garments, We should take some protective action and grow up fabric inspection department’s strength with qualified personnel. When quality team receives any fabric consignment for inspection from store then they will start below three different steps simultaneously to minimize finished garments rejection, increase production capability, increase factories goodwill and quality team faith etc.

1. Make shade swatch card to identify if there are any different shade within a consignment.

2. Select some rolls randomly if there is any running shading within the roll.

3. Send every shade to laboratory to get shade variation report.

4. Shrinkage Test also required to take a cutting approval.

After that Factory Qc considered below issues and my responsibility is he done the right way,

1. Visually inspects and grade from a viewing distance of one yard while the fabric is in motion. Fabric may be stopped to grade when necessary to affirm marginal defects and defects may be flagged.

2. Inspect and grade the total lengths of each role or bolt sample.

3. Assign points to the defects based upon their length within the plane of the fabric according to the following option.

4. Assign no more than a total of 4 points to any one linear yard of fabric, regardless of the number or size of the detected individual defects.

5. Assign 4 points to each consecutive linear yard in which a continuous running defect exceeds 9".

6. Assign the 4 points to each linear yard of fabric where the useable width is less than the minimum specified.

7. Assign 4 points to each seam or other full width defect or seam if applicable.

Inspection result and decided to which fabric is good for cutting:

Pass: Maximum 25 points per standard length (where standard length is 100 yards).

Yellow tag: if reject points over 25 and up to 36 point out of 100 yd. will be yellow tag based on defect conditions, location and nature by considering the following things.

1) The roll can be cut by special marker.

2) Replacing defective yd. can cut the roll, (by 100% panel inspection)

Red tag: If reject points over 36 out of 100 yd. & worst than yellow tag roll, which we can't use by above yellow tag's terms & condition this is considered as red tag.

In that Stage cutting approval given below issues considered:

Inspection at cutting section we have to monitored carefully is they done their responsibility in right way,

To reduce the defect fabrics and save the production cost for smooth production quality team are doing inspection in two steps.

Layer inspection: The main object of this inspection is whether the layers are lying properly and as per request length. Also during fabrics layering if there is any major defect in fabrics QC stop the layer for layering. QC team doesn’t accept any overlapping layer in this stage. For re-placing the reject parts QC use to keep about five yards of fabrics from every roll.

Quality inspector makes this report and submitted to cutting QC, concern cutting chief and merchandising team.

Cut panel inspection: After placing the serial number in every component of cut panel, inspection process is started from this stage. Though rolls are accepted in initial inspection still there are some defects on the roll. So quality team does sort out those defective components during cut panel inspection. QC replace the defect component from the balance fabrics, which QC kept from each roll, depends on numbering. It is mentionable that QC does record how many layers have completed from each roll to identify the fabric for replacement. The report we are following call “cut panel inspection report”.

Fabric Sourcing Procedure in Garments Industry

Sourcing the right fabric can be sometimes a tough challenge faced by apparel manufacturers. Out of the total cost of manufacturing a garment piece, the cost of fabric can contribute between 50 and 65 per cent. Furthermore, even a minor oversight in selecting the right fabric and right manufacturer may spoil the entire apparel programme. Interestingly, though the fabric constitutes the main part of a garment, many of the apparel merchandisers have a very limited knowledge about fabric. They consider fabric as another component of raw material like buttons, care labels, and hang tags or packing materials. Unfortunately, describing a fabric in terms of specification to fulfill its end use is much more complicated than communicating the requirement of any other component of a garment and many apparel merchandisers do not have the necessary knowledge or training to order the right fabric from the right manufacturer at the right price. To be on the safer side, they simply ask various suppliers to bid for their lowest price and finally select the one who offers the lowest price or the most favorable term.

Consequently we often see the adverse effects of poor fabric sourcing strategy every day in the apparel industry. Garment air shipment cost is prohibitive and applied as penalty only when the apparel manufacturer fails to deliver the consignments beyond acceptable delays. The cost of air-freight is so high that air shipment of a single consignment of garments may wipe off the profit of a few months for the garment manufacturer. A study revealed that more than 80% of all garment air shipment is caused due to poor fabric sourcing management.

Fortunately, such critical errors can be avoided when sourcing woven fabric for manufacturing garments and the procedure is easier than we think about it. When discussing with the garment buyer, do not just talk about the target price he or she is giving us. Ask about the fabric in more detail. This is not only about the counts, construction and weight of the fabric but about some important and critical points. Here are certain things to keep in mind to ensure a trouble free fabric sourcing.

So it is crucial to sourcing the right Fabric on time. Fabric sourcing can change the whole scenario and total cost of the garments.

Finished Fabric Sourcing Procedure (white or dyed):

While a factory directly source finished fabric from mills they usually follow below procedures

Research for fabric suppliers: Fabric sourcing department research for available suppliers and shortlist some of them to work with for their fabrics.

Send fabric specification: Factory sends fabric sample or fabric specifications such as count and construction, GSM, weave structure and fabric width to the supplier.

Price negotiation and payment terms: Fabric sourcing department requests for the best price quote from fabric supplier and negotiate for the best price. Negotiation is also done for delivery lead time. Once cost negotiation is done, factory confirm supplier for lap-dip development.

Lap-dip approval: Fabric supplier develops sample for multiple shades as per required colors and send to factory for approval of most appropriate shade. Factory merchant sends those lap-dips to buyers or buying agents for approval.

Raising fabric demand note: Factory merchants calculate average fabric consumption and raise fabric demand note for the complete order. Fabric demand note is approved by authorized person and handed over to sourcing department for further processing.

Raise PO for bulk order: Factory sends purchase order (PO) to the fabric supplier. In some cases supplier ask for advanced payment (part of total invoice).

Received fabric delivery: Fabric supplier sends fabric to the factory fabric store in roll or than form.

Quality and quantity checking: Once fabrics are received, factory checks for quantity and quality of the fabric whether those are as per requirement. Quality means fabric properties such as shrinkage, dimensional stability, fabric weaving and processing defects etc. In case there is variation factory intimate fabric supplier and send back for reprocessing if required. Or raise a debit note if fabric quality is poor than the quality ordered at the time of contract.

Fabric approval for bulk production: Fabrics passed in quality inspection and testing are stored for bulk cutting. For some apparel buyers finished fabric lots need to be approved from buyers.

Payment is sent to the fabric supplier: Factory releases final payment for the fabric supplier once fabric is found ok.

Greige Fabric Sourcing Procedure:

To save money in processing (wet processing) medium and large size garment manufacturers (export houses) source greige fabric from mills or power looms instead of finished fabric. They process greige fabric by their own. So, there is small variation in fabric sourcing procedure than the procedure explained above.

From development of fabric supplier to price negotiation are same as the above. Factory sources greige fabric instead of finished fabric. So, prior to use fabric for garment production, fabrics are processed. Fabric sourcing department sends gerige fabrics to dyeing mills for wet processing (scouring, bleaching, dyeing or printing). Lap-dip approval is done in prior to bulk dyeing. Once lap-dip is approved by buyer, factory confirm for bulk dyeing. Finished fabrics are in-housed follow rests of the procedures as explained above.

 Yarn Dyed Fabric Sourcing Procedure:

There is slight variation in sourcing procedures when garment factory sources yarn dyed fabrics. Instead of lap-dip factory develops bit loom for fabric design (weave of checks or stripes). Colors of the dyed yarns are approved in fabric. Rests of the procedures is same as the above.

Knitted Fabric Sourcing Procedure:

Like above knitted fabrics are also sourced as finished fabric (dyed or yarn dyed). Small variation found in knitted fabric like some factories source greige yarns instead gerige fabric and get knitting done by their own. Rests of the processes are similar to the above.