Evenweaves |
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From: CameoRoze This is a great question and one that I hear often. I learned the difference via Kathy Dyer's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on Fabric.
Some linens are woven evenly, with x amount of stitches per inch, other linens are not woven evenly. Those woven evenly are the ones we stitch on and can be purchased in your local needlework specialty shop. The others might be used to construct clothing, etc. and can be purchased in your local fabric/sewing shop. Some fabric shops also carry a limited amount of evenweave linens on bolts, but they are generally displayed in a part of the shop separate from the linens used for clothing construction.
Now, as for the "evenweave" fabrics used for embroidery, the main difference between evenweaves and linens is fiber content. Linen is made of the fibers from the flax plant. Evenweaves, woven in the same way as linen, is made of various types of fibers, some natural, some synthetic, some blends. Most of the confusion in this matter comes because stitchers often call anything that is not aida "linen", when in fact, it is really in the broader "evenweave" catagory. Linens used for counted thread embroidery generally are evenweaves, but not all evenweaves are linen.
Linen tends to have the slubs and may or may not be an evenweave ... with the stitches per inch being equal vertically and horizontally. The linens we use for counted thread techniques are woven with the attempt to have equal stitches per inch in both directions. The amount of slubs in your linen is often directly in proportion to the cost: the better the linen, the less slubs and the more evenly woven the fabric will be; the less expensive the fabric, the more slubs and more uneven the width of the individual fibers making up the fabric. Pure linen generally has every hole the same size. Because of this, some stitchers find it somewhat difficult to keep track of which hole is the right one in which to begin stitching.
Evenweaves are woven so that the stitches per inch ARE equal vertically and horizontally. Also, though both types of fabrics are a simple weave (over, under, over, under, over, under), evenweaves like Jobelan and Lugana have every-other hole slightly larger. This slightly larger hole is next to the "vertical thread" that we look for to begin our stitching. So our needle is going up and down in the slightly larger holes and skipping the slightly smaller holes. (Kathy Dyer taught me that in a chat room long ago!) Because of the cue these slightly larger holes give the stitcher, and the even density of the weave, Jobelan and Lugana are often recommended when learning to stitch "over two."
Aida and Hardanger cloth are woven with more than one vertical thread going over and under an equal amount of horizontal threads. Aida is woven in block of 4 threads; Hardanger is woven in blocks of 2 threads.
Because fiber content and weave are the keys to the name of a fabric, you can find linen aida ...... a fabric made of flax but woven like aida in blocks of 4 threads (looks like stitching over little "boxes"). However, most aida is made of 100% cotton in stitch counts of 11ct to 22 ct.
Some evenweaves are cottons (I believe Moreno is one and is often used in silk ribbon embroidery), others are blends of fibers, including cottons, linens, or synthetics. Fiber content varies in fabrics for counted thread techniques just as it does in t-shirts: some are 100% cotton and some are cotton/polyester blends. The different fiber content blends have different fabric names. And the same fiber content blends but in different stitch counts (stitches per inch) have different names. Thus these two fabrics, though almost identical in fiber content, have different names because of the different stitch counts:
16 count Jobelan Fiber content: 51% cot/49% polyester
25 count Lugana Fiber content: 52% cot/48% rayon
Now, to find out which evenweaves are made of what fiber content, check out Kathy Dyer's FAQ: Fabric.
This lists the fabric names, the stitch count per inch, and the fiber(s) the fabrics are made from. This is an excellent resource which finally made this subject very clear to me.
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From: Roy R. Rimmele Evenweave means just that....same number of vertical threads as horizontal threads per inch, centimeter, etc. There are evenweave fabrics and non-evenweave fabrics. [The difference between evenweaves and non-evenweaves] has nothing to do with fabric content (i.e. flax (linen), or cotton (Aida)), [but how the cloth is woven.]
I think the confusion is evenweave versus singleweave fabric. Counted needlework is down USUALLY on evenweave fabric. Hence when you stitch a picture of a dog it reproduces looking like a dog not distorted like a
horse. Evenweaves are 'singlethread' fabrics, sometimes they're linens, sometimes cotton, sometimes blends like Lugana, or Jobelan. Aida cloth is usually woven out of cotton in blocks of 4 threads. Aida is usually 11CT
through 18CT. There are fabrics woven to look like aida that are larger in count, i.e. 7CT Klostern [and] 22 CT Hardanger is woven to look like Aida, but there is only 2 threads in it's blocks.
There are uneven weaves on the market, but they are not normally used for counted thread needlework like cross-stitch. There is at least one compant El & Nell that has linen woven in uneaven count (i.e. 27 X 32CT) in order
to reproduce antique samplers as close to the original as possible. If you buy your fabric from a needlework shop, your fabric will almost assuredly be an evenweave. If you buy linen at a fabric store or some other outlet....check it out. It may not be an evenweave!
Most of the fabric we use in the United States for needlework is imported from the U.K., Denmark, Belgium, Germany, or Switzerland. Hence the price. There are a couple of domestic companies that produce useable
aida, but as far as I can tell even CharlesCraft imports their linen.
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From: Tara Dewdney And then there is my personal Favourite. Annabelle. A 28 count, 100% cotton, with slubs. Not a linen (by fibre content) and not a true even weave (by nature of the slubs).
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From: Joanne [Another point of view]
The quality of linen is not measured by the "slubs" nor simply by the price. There is more costly linen that is simply not suited to stitching. To imply that you get a better linen by paying more [snip] is inaccurate. The choice of a fabric should be guided by the effect the stutcher wants to achieve -- and often a particular effect can be achieved in various price ranges.
Incidentally, linen is not the only fabric with slubs (which are not considered undesirable imperfections, but rather as additional texture). Alma, for example, is an evenweave blend [28 count; Fiber content: 51% cotton/ 48% rayon] whose colors carry a white slub which gives the pastels a frosted look.
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