What Is Warp And Weft?

What Is Warp And Weft?

What is warp and weft? It will be an easy way for the expert to tell the warp and weft side from the fabric. But for a newcomer in textile, it’s not that easy to identify it. Most of the time you will find out it’s pretty cool to tell the warp and weft direction in a few seconds.

Keep looking. I will tell you all the secret recipes and make you the expert.

Textile is constructed by horizontal and vertical yarns. Check out the below fabric construction image and you will easily get the idea.

What is the difference between warp and weft? 

In the daily used fabric, the direction parallels to the selvedge is the warp. The direction vertical to the selvedge is the weft. This is the easiest way to identify them.

Now you may ask, if the fabric cutting on my hand is without selvedge. Or I want to show my professional skill when I was in a shop. Don’t worry, as an expert in textile for more than 20 years, I will tell you 4 secret recipes to identify the textile warp and weft when you only have a garment or a fabric cutting with you.

4 secret recipes to identify.

1. If a fabric is constructed with one direction individual strand yarn and the other direction plied yarn (two strand or even more twisted together). The plied yarn is the warp yarn and the strand yarn is the weft yarn. Now you may easily find out the direction by this method.

2. You can check the fabric density to find out the direction. If you have a density mirror (see the photo below), and you know how to use it. The high density side is the warp side. So the low density side is weft side. You may have interest in how to use this density mirror. Don’t worry. I will tell you the right way to use it in the next post. (Click to read the post.)

3. Take the fabric against the light or sunshine. You may find out one side yarn arranged well-proportioned and the other side shows regularity gap pattern. The well-proportioned direction is weft and the other side is warp.(Check the previous fabric yarn construction image. You can easily understand.)

4. The last method is the most technique way. You can find a lab to analyze the fabric yarn shrinkage. The high shrinkage yarn is the warp yarn and the low shrinkage one is the weft yarn. So here also comes the direction.

By using these 4 methods, you can easily find out what is warp and weft of a fabric even it’s only a small cutting. Do you already got it?

Stay tuned for our next post about the special knowledge of textile.