Choosing fabric by the metre is easier once you understand how it is woven. The name of a fabric describes neither its colour nor its composition: it describes the structure in which the threads cross, and that structure decides how it drapes, what it weighs, how it irons and what it is good for.
But the name is only the first line. What you are actually buying is on the spec sheet, and an incomplete spec sheet is behind almost every order that arrives and turns out to be unusable. This guide has two parts: what each fabric is, and how to read the sheet that comes with it.
The three basic weaves
Almost every fabric starts from one of three ways of crossing weft and warp:
- Plain weave: one thread over, one under. The simplest and, structurally, the strongest. Poplin and voile come from here.
- Twill: the crossings shift and form visible diagonals. More flexible and more abrasion-resistant, because the diagonal spreads the rubbing.
- Sateen: threads float over the surface before crossing. It gives sheen and a smooth hand, and in exchange a surface more sensitive to rubbing.
Poplin
A fine, compact plain weave, usually sanforized (pre-shrunk). Smooth surface, good body and a crisp look that survives ironing.
For: shirting, upper-tier bed linen, uniforms. It is the fabric of 200-thread sheets: in our range, 200-thread poplin with 40/1 yarn in warp and weft, 100% combed cotton and around 130 g/m².
Sateen
A long-float weave that creates one shiny face and one matt one. It drapes fluidly and feels silky.
For: table linen, linings and garments where drape matters. Table-linen sateen usually uses plied yarn — ours is a 30/2 × 30/2 at 144 threads and around 230 g/m² — because plying compacts the cloth and holds the drape after hundreds of cycles.
Twill
Recognisable by its diagonals. It is the work fabric par excellence: tough, good at hiding creases, able to take hard use.
For: uniforms, workwear, kitchen cloths, light upholstery. A typical work twill sits around 195–200 g/m² with plied 20/2 yarn.
Voile
A very light, low-density plain weave, semi-transparent and breathable, made with fine yarn — 60/1 is common.
For: net curtains and light curtains, blouses, summer linings, floaty garments.
Ticking
A dense twill-weave fabric with woven stripes, designed to hold down and feathers without letting them through. It sits around 230 g/m².
For: mattress and pillow protectors, bedspreads, cushions, upholstery.
Ottoman and piqué
Ottoman is a fabric with a pronounced horizontal rib, with body and weight; diamond piqué gives a different relief with the same idea: body without stiffness. Both sit around 230 g/m².
For: bedspreads and coverlets, heavy curtaining, decorative upholstery.
The spec sheet, line by line
This is the part that decides whether the order is usable. A complete sheet has seven lines, and each answers a different question.
1. Composition
The same weave behaves differently depending on the fibre:
- 100% cotton: breathable, natural hand, more creasing and slower drying.
- 50/50 cotton-polyester: hard-wearing, fast-drying, far less ironing. The professional standard.
- CVC (65/35, 60/40): cotton is still the majority, with more durability than pure cotton.
- 65/35 polyester-cotton: the reverse; polyester rules. Standard in workwear and kitchen cloths.
Composition is not a preference about hand: it decides the wash process. The tender from the Huelva provincial purchasing office puts it in writing for its laundry: "The Service requires a guarantee of high-temperature thermal disinfection for garments that are 100% cotton, and for the rest through chlorinated products in the case of polyester, and always at medium temperature". If you are making up for a property, the fibre you choose determines which machine the piece will go through.
2. Yarn count: 30/1, 40/1, 30/2
This is the line most often confused with density. The yarn count tells you its fineness: the higher the number, the finer the yarn. A 30/1 is the hotel-sheet yarn; a 40/1 is finer and gives 200-thread poplin; a 60/1 makes a voile; an 80/1 is more than twice as fine as a 30/1 and gives a light, lustrous sateen.
The second figure is the ply. A "/1" is single yarn; a "/2" is plied, two strands twisted together. A 30/2 is not "twice as fine": it is thicker and more even than a 30/1, which is why it is used where the cloth has to be compacted — table linen, work twill.
3. Thread density: per centimetre or per inch
Here is the most expensive misreading. A thread number means nothing without its unit. Threads per centimetre and threads per inch are not comparable, and the conversion is direct: an inch is 2.54 cm, so 20 threads/cm is about 51 threads per inch.
If a sheet says "154 threads" without saying per what unit, or whether it adds warp and weft together, that line tells you nothing: ask. How the 144 and 200 threads of a hotel bed are actually counted, and how that number can be inflated, we go into in the percal and thread-count guide.
4. Weight
Grams per square metre. It is the easiest line to compare between two fabrics of the same type and the most misleading between different types: a 130 g/m² plain weave and a 230 g/m² ticking are not competing at anything. Compare weight within the same weave and the same composition, or do not compare.
5. Dimensional stability
The line that almost never appears and that prevents the most claims. It is expressed as a percentage, separately for warp and weft, stating how the sample was washed. "Sanforized" is not a figure: it says the fabric has been pre-shrunk, not how much shrinkage is left.
This is how it should come. Our 200-thread poplin is sanforized and mercerized, with a declared dimensional change of ±3% in warp and weft, at both 40 and 60 °C. That is the format: a percentage, in both directions, at the temperature you are actually going to wash at.
Two external references to place what is reasonable to demand. The German bed linen quality specification OS 80-06:2015, reported in a 2023 study in Scientific Reports, asks for ±3% in warp and ±3% in weft after three washes, measured to EN ISO 5077 with the wash of EN ISO 6330 (procedure 9N for whites, 6N for colour), together with a minimum tensile strength of 400 N to EN ISO 13934-1. And a Spanish hospital linen tender, that of Hospital de Poniente, requires "dimensional stability 2% after 10 washes", spelled out for another item in the same document as "2% (after 10 washes at 80 ºC)".
6. Finish
- Sanforized: mechanical pre-shrinking. It reduces what the fabric will later shrink, without eliminating it.
- Mercerized: a cotton treatment that acts on lustre, dye behaviour and strength. It is not a pre-shrink.
- Anti-pilling: a finish that prevents bobbling from rubbing. It is the standard finish for textiles headed for an industrial machine.
7. Width
A wider cloth cuts waste and avoids joining seams in large pieces. In practice, width decides the seam:
- 145–160 cm: garment making, linings, net curtains.
- 190 cm: pillowcases and small pieces with no waste.
- 280–300 cm: flat sheets and bedspreads for beds up to 200 with no centre seam.
- 320–330 cm: single-piece banquet tablecloths.
Always work out the metreage with the real width in front of you, not the catalogue's nominal width.
Greige, PFD and white — and the width catch
- Greige: unbleached fabric in its natural colour. For dyeing, or for rustic finishes.
- PFD (prepared for dyeing): ready to dye, with no size or optical brightener to interfere with the dye.
- White: already bleached and ready to use.
If you are going to dye, ask for greige or PFD; if the project ends white, skip the step. And check the width for that specific finish, because they do not always match: our 50/1 poplin comes greige at 160 cm and PFD at 150 cm, and the 60/1 voile greige at 160 and PFD at 145. Ten or fifteen centimetres decide whether a piece comes out of one cut or two.
What to ask when the sheet does not say
- Is thread density per centimetre or per inch, and does it add warp and weft together?
- What dimensional change is declared, in warp and in weft, with which wash and how many cycles?
- Is the stated width the usable width or does it include selvedges?
- Does that width apply to the finish I am going to order?
- Is the weight that of the finished cloth or of the greige?
- Does it carry an optical brightener? (It matters if you are dyeing, and if you are reordering a year from now.)
- Which finishes does it have: sanforized, mercerized, anti-pilling?
With those seven answers you can genuinely compare two offers. Without them you are only comparing price per metre on different things.
Our range by the metre
In fabric by the metre we work with poplin, sateen, twill, voile, ticking, ottoman, piqué and the 144-thread cloth of the hotel bed, in 100% cotton and in blends, in widths from 145 to 330 cm and in white, greige and PFD finishes. Each sheet states composition, yarn, weight and width by finish.
If you want to see first where each of those numbers comes from, the full route is in how hospitality textiles are made; and if the fabric is going to end up in a laundry, it is worth reading how to wash it before settling on a composition.