General guidelines for choosing fabrics for clothes or furnishings … Choosing ultraviolet light—resistant fibers … Dish towels and dishcloths … Bath towels and hand towels … Bath rugs and mats … Table linens, sizes of tablecloths and napkins … Upholstery … Rugs and carpets … Carpet padding or underlay … Clothes that are cool, warm, low- or no-iron, UV protective
A beautiful cotton print tablecloth I once bought turned out to be colored with bleeding dyes, a fact I discovered only when I brought it home and read all its labels. Such dyes are unsuitable for a tablecloth, which requires frequent, vigorous laundering. Because this madras cloth had to be washed in cold water, separately from the rest of the laundry, I could not get oily food spots out of it. Even with cold-water washing, its lovely colors turned muddy after only two or three trips through the washer, and it became downright ugly. If I had read its labels before I bought it, instead of letting my eyes make the decision, I could have had an equally pretty cloth that would have stayed pretty.
The lesson here is that you cannot assume that an article sold for a particular function is well designed to perform that function. The store shelves all too often contain eye-catching textile goods that do not make sense when you try to use them. Suggestions for finding fabrics that work in household jobs, from towels to upholstery, and for avoiding the frustration, expense, and inconvenience of poor choices, are set forth in the material below. For guidance on how to choose bed linens and blankets, see chapter 15, “Beds and Bedding.”
General Guidelines on Choosing Fabrics for Clothes or Furnishings
Before buying fabric goods, read all the information provided on hang tags, packages, and fiber content and other labels, including, of course, care labels. Look for logos that convey information about the nature or origin of a fabric. Look for evidence of finishing treatments or types of dye used, for example, a tag that says an article is vat-dyed or yarn-dyed, or is a madras print. Does it require separate washing and hand-washing? Is it wrinkle-resistant? Water-resistant? Stain-resistant? Avoid inexpensive goods that are expensive or impossible to clean.
Carefully examine clothes and furnishings inside and out before buying. Evaluate them in terms of probable comfort, durability, and functioning: examine their construction, finishes, fiber content, and workmanship.
Buy preshrunk goods whenever possible.
To reduce your risks from unknowable factors, choose reputable retailers and manufacturers. A company whose major business for many years has been manufacturing towels is more likely to sell you a towel that performs well than a company whose major asset is a fashion logo. Of course, every rule has its exceptions, except perhaps the rule of caveat emptor.
Seams should hold together tightly and not pull apart. Look at the kinds of seams that are used. Although a plain running stitch is the right type of seam on many articles, flat-felled or other reinforced seams have much more strength and are desirable in play or sports clothes. Better quality sweaters and other knits often provide a length of matching yarn attached to a hang tag for use in case you ever need to make repairs.
Stitching should be small, smooth, straight, even, and tight. Look at the hems on sheets and towels, and at the quilting stitches on mattress pads and comforters. Mitered corners are often a sign of quality in bed and table linens.
Buttons should be securely attached, with a shank or thread shank, so that they fit readily into the buttonholes. On heavy garments such as winter coats, buttons should be attached with heavy-duty thread or by some other extra-strong means. Extra buttons should be provided. Buttonholes should be neatly and closely stitched all around.
Flat-felled seams on denims
Mitered corner
Nonmitered corner
Look for linings in blazers, jackets, skirts, and other garments. These improve the wear, hang, comfort, and appearance of many kinds of clothes and are usually a sign of better quality.
Although we all sometimes like clothes of a rough cut for fashion reasons, better kinds of clothing are usually shaped to the body, sometimes so subtly that you can barely detect how it is done. Look to see whether a dress or shirt is simply square or shows shaping through the cut of the cloth or darts, tucks, pleats, or other types of construction.
Weave should be even, close or tight, and uniform, with no crooked threads, knots, protruding threads, broken threads, or slubs (unless slubs are put there intentionally, for example, for fashion reasons). You should not see thick or thin spots except where this is done purposely for effect. You should not see crooked lines in the weave. The yarns should be of uniform size, and the individual yarns should show uniform diameter.
Goods should be cut straight. Unfold napkins and other flat goods (handkerchiefs, blankets, sheets) and hold them up to the light. You should be able to see that the threads are parallel and perpendicular to the edge of the cloth. The shape should be even and square at the corners.
Color should be even and uniform and penetrate well. Check for color penetration at the seams and darts especially.
Avoid overstarched goods—those whose appearance, body, or firmness is actually a function of starches that will launder out. If you rub the fabric between your hands, sometimes you can actually see excess starch powder fall out.
Choosing Ultraviolet Light—Resistant Fibers
The chart below gives a rough ranking of the various textile fibers in accordance with their ability to resist degradation—loss of strength, deterioration, yellowing, and other ill effects—caused by exposure to the ultraviolet radiation in sunlight and other types of light. Resistance to degradation as a result of exposure to light is obviously crucial in furnishings, especially draperies but also carpeting and upholstery. Treatments are sometimes available that increase a fiber’s resistance to UV radiation, however, and other factors are also relevant. For example, southern light causes more damage than other light; higher humidity increases the rate of damage. Most importantly, the dyes used on the fabrics may have low resistance to light and thus fade, even though the fibers themselves have good light resistance. Thus the chart gives only some of the relevant facts you need to consider when assessing probable light resistance.
Excellent Ultraviolet Light- Resistance
Acrylic
Modacrylic
Polyester
Good Resistance
Linen
Cotton
Rayon
Acetate
Triacetate
Poor Resistance
Nylon
Wool
Silk
Olefin/Polypropylene
Choosing Dish Towels and Dishcloths
Functional Properties to Look For
Highly absorbent
Soft, flexible
Nonlinting, especially for drying china and glass
Durable
Care Characteristics. Dish towels and dishcloths must be launderable and colorfast, and they should be able to take hot washing and drying temperatures, ordinary laundry detergents, and chlorine bleaches. When you launder kitchen toweling, you want to be able to remove food stains and sanitize. Avoid buying towels with care labels that say “Wash separately” or “Wash with like colors” or “No bleach.”
Good Choices. There are stalwart defenders of cotton dish towels, but in my opinion linen are best. For drying glass and china they are particularly desirable because they do not lint. Huckaback or huck toweling makes a fine towel. Crash towels are also good. They are cheaper and rougher than another, finer, type of plain-weave towel called a “glass towel” or “dish towel.” (“Huck towel,” “huckaback,” “crash,” and other fabric terms used in this chapter are defined in the Glossary of Fabric Terms, page 298, at the end of chapter 19, “The Fabric of Your Home.”) The words “glass towel” or “dish towel” may be woven into such towels. They are indeed good for drying glass and china because they have smooth, hard-twisted yarns to prevent linting. Glass towels often come in white with blue or red checks or stripes, but some are in prints as well. Damask dish towels look beautiful but may be less absorbent because of the tightness of their weave.
Glass towel
Cotton towels, too, come in crash or huckaback weaves and various plain weaves, especially basket weaves. They are a bit less absorbent and more likely than linen to yellow or gray with age and to lint. But cotton still makes an excellent towel and is less expensive than linen. Good-quality cotton towels do not lint. Cotton terry-cloth dish towels are widely available in a range of styles and quality.
Waffle or similar spongy weaves, terry-cloth, and basket weaves will be naturally wrinkle-resistant, so these are for you if you can bear neither to iron dish towels nor to look at wrinkles. Crash and glass towels work fine in their wrinkled state, but you might roll them tightly around a tube while they are warm from the dryer to smooth them out. Or fold them neatly and set a weight on the stack while they are still warm. (See chapter 6, “Ironing.”)
Choose dishcloths for washing dishes in any spongy, bumpy, soft weave of cotton, such as a waffle weave. The raised portions of the weave provide good friction for rubbing dishes clean, and a good, spongy weave will hold plenty of water. Thickest is not necessarily best, however, as you will be unable to get into small places with very thick fabrics and you will be less able to feel bumps through such fabrics with your fingers.
Choosing Bath and Hand Towels
Functional Properties to Look For
Soft
Highly absorbent
Durable
Thick or thin, according to preference
Care Characteristics. Traditional housekeepers sought bath and hand towels and washcloths able to take hot water and dryer temperatures, ordinary detergents, and—if needed—chlorine bleach. This is because you want to be able to sanitize them if necessary and to be able to remove stains and soils wiped off the skin. You will search long and hard before you find any today that have care labels permitting such vigorous laundering. But I find that towels can quite often be laundered vigorously despite care label instructions to the contrary. (See chapter 2, “Carefully Disregarding Care Labels.”) Towels should always be colorfast. Avoid buying towels with care labels that say “Wash separately” or “Wash with like colors.” This is a care instruction that makes no sense for towels. But care instructions to wash separately for the first two or three launderings are not objectionable, as this indicates that the towels are really colorfast but may hold some excess dye that will readily and permanently wash out.
Although colored towels are lovely, it is not a bad idea to stock some plain white towels as well. White towels, usually, can take the most vigorous laundering with hot water, strong detergents, and bleaches; thus they are not hard to keep looking good. Not only are they attractive in the bath, you will find many uses for them outside the bath, such as laying wet clothes on them or rolling wet clothes in them to dry, and for hot and cold compresses; everyone finds further uses special to their own homes.
Most people prefer thick towels, and, other things being equal, thicker towels will be more durable. But there are those who like thinner towels. Some members of my family hate thick towels, insisting that they make it hard to get behind the ears or between toes. They like old towels worn to thinness or inexpensive thin, new towels. The others prefer the luxurious softness and greater absorbency of thick towels.
Most towels will shrink a little; towels of lower quality may shrink greatly, often becoming misshapen in the process.
Good Choices. Turkish towels or cotton terry-cloth towels, which were introduced in the late nineteenth century, are wonderfully soft and absorbent for the bath. And nothing beats cotton terry-cloth washcloths, which mildly abrade the skin to remove soil, oil, and dead cells. Although cotton is less absorbent than linen and, when dry, initially resists moisture, the loops on the face of terry towels help them to pick up more moisture and to hold more of it than other towels, including linen ones. The most absorbent towels have the most pile loops, which should be long and not too tightly twisted. When the loops are cropped to form velour terry, the cloth feels velvety and shows prints well but is much less absorbent. Terry towels with cotton pile and a polyester back will still be fairly absorbent, since most of the drying that your towels do is with the pile. (Polyester in the back adds strength and durability.) A tight, balanced weave, preferably a twill, is desirable. But the thread count of the towel is less important in determining absorbency than the weight of the towel: heavier towels are more absorbent.
Look for dense, thick, firm towels with high pile, even selvage edges, and small, even hem stitches. Hold terry-cloth towels up to the light to check the quality of the underlying weave. Feel it for softness and resilience. Avoid towels that lack that cottony, dry, terrycloth feeling and instead have a certain (seductively pleasant) silky or smooth feel. In my experience, the latter are not very absorbent until they have received long wear and grown more cottony.
Although you see extra-long-staple Egyptian and pima cotton towels praised, I prefer terry-cloth towels made of upland cotton, which seem to me more absorbent and softer. Towels of extralong-staple cotton, however, grow softer and more absorbent as they age.
TOWEL SIZES
Towel sizes are not uniform from manufacturer to manufacturer. The sizes below are common, but do not be surprised to encounter different dimensions. Store three sets of towels per person plus one or more sets for guests.
Finger or guest: 12 × 18; II × 16; 14 × 22
Hand: 18 × 30; 16 × 30; 20 × 32
Bath: 24 × 46; 28 × 52
Bath sheet: 38 × 72; 36 × 70; 40 × 70
Bath mat: 19 × 27; 22 × 36
Washcloth: 12 × 12; 13 × 13
Most people in this country would never exchange the great comfort, absorbency, and reasonable prices of terry-cloth towels for old-fashioned linen bath towels. The latter lacked a pile and were made in a variety of weaves, such as huck, honeycomb, or waffle weave. Linen bath towels vied with terry-cloth through the opening decades of the twentieth century and are still favored in some places in Europe. They are often quite large but quickly grow damp and soaked and can chill you in cold bathrooms; they wrinkle readily. They can be quite beautiful, especially those with long, silky fringes. But although people look more elegant wrapped in the folds of fine, fringed linen fabric after a bath, people wrapped in terry towels are warmer and more comfy. If you would like to try linen bath towels, the most sensible (and the warmest) have thick, spongy weaves such as waffle weave and natural colors—cream, tan, and off-white. The most beautiful are in jacquard or dobby weaves. You may be able to find such nonterry bath towels in cottons as well.
Some companies make linen terry-cloth towels, often marketing them especially to men. These towels are invigoratingly scratchy and quite absorbent, especially after a couple of washes, but the ones I have seen are not nearly as pretty as cotton terry-cloth.
Hand towels of linen are traditional. They come in beautiful damask weaves or huck, crash, honeycomb, or waffle weaves. Linen towels are absorbent and durable, do not yellow or turn gray, and can take strong laundering. Cotton terry is more absorbent than other types of cotton hand towels, but all are good. Guest hand towels often are delicate and elegant, with fringe, embroidery, cutwork, or lace. These require careful ironing to look good.
Bath Rugs and Mats
Functional Properties to Look For
Absorbent
Slip-resistant
Care Characteristics. Bath rugs and mats should be easily launderable and colorfast. Although bleaching is not so important for bath mats and rugs as for towels and sheets, it is always easier to get out stains using a chlorine bleach. Nonslip backings on bathroom rugs are indispensable. (Usually you can machine-launder these; if the care label says not to, do not buy the rug.) Bath mats, which are often made simply of thick, absorbent woven cotton, have no nonslip backings. Be careful using them! Laying them on a bathroom rug that has a nonslip back sometimes solves the slippage problem and keeps the rug drier as well.
Table Linen
Functional Properties to Look For
Absorbent
Smooth hand
Crisp, drapable
Durable
Care Characteristics. Tablecloths and napkins, ideally, should be able to take hot-water laundering, ordinary commercial detergents, and chlorine bleach, for they will be exposed to food, drink, and lipstick stains, among others. In practice, few care labels prescribe vigorous laundering for table linens. Yet unless you can at least sometimes use your strongest laundry weapons, you may not be able to keep them looking good. Although you might take risks with everyday table linens to get out stains, you can face agonizing choices when it is your beloved damasks or lace, hand-embroidered, or cutwork cloths that have become spotted. Therefore consider whether you should choose table linens that minimize such risks: whites and colorfast table linens in heavier weights, for example, are better able to endure the occasional stain-removal trauma. Linen gives up stains and soil more readily than cotton but, on the other hand, is more readily damaged by bleach.
Table linens of untreated cotton or linen will require ironing. If natural fibers receive wrinkle-resistance treatments, you may find you are satisfied with their appearance with little or no ironing. When natural fibers are blended with synthetics, too, you can often get by with little or no ironing. But both resin-treated cloth and cloth containing hydrophobic synthetic fibers tend to oil-stain. If you buy these, therefore, look for labels that say the cloth has received soil-repelling and soil-releasing treatments to make laundering them easier. (See chapter 20, “Transformations,” pages 323-24, on soil-resistance treatments.
Sizes. Breakfast or lunch cloths should hang over the edge of the table 6 to 8 inches. The dinner cloth should hang over the edge 8 to 12 inches. The more formal the occasion, the longer the desirable overhang—from 12 to 18 inches for formal dinners. There are those, however, who object to the tablecloth hitting the chair seat. More than 12 inches of overhang will cause the cloth to begin folding up on the chair. The suggestions below, therefore, are rough and must be adapted to the occasion. Allow for shrinkage in laundering when you choose your table linens. As with sheets, expect most of the shrinkage to occur in the length—up to 10 percent.
| Shape | Table Size (in inches) | Cloth Size (in inches) | Person Seated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square | 28 × 28 to 40 × 40 | 52 ® 52 | 4 |
| Round | 30 to 42 diameter | 52 round | 4 |
| 42 to 44 diameter | 60 to 68 | 4 to 6 | |
| 42 to 46 diameter | 68 with fringe | 4 to 6 | |
| 42 to 54 diameter | 68 with fringe | 6 | |
| 42 to 60 diameter | 72 round | 6 | |
| 64 to 76 diameter | 90 round | 6 to 8 | |
| Oblong | 28 ® 46 to 36 ® 64 | 52 ® 70 | 4 to 6 |
| 36 ® 56 to 42 ® 62 | 60 ® 80 | 6 to 8 | |
| 42 ® 60 to 48 ® 72 | 72 ® 90 | 8 to 10 | |
| 42 ® 72 to 48 ® 90 | 72 ® 108 | 8 to 10 | |
| Oval 28 ® 46 to 36 ® 54 | 52 ® 70 | 4 to 6 | |
| 36 ® 56 to 42 ® 62 | 60 ® 80 | 6 to 8 | |
| 42 ® 60 to 48 ® 72 | 72 ® 90 | 6 to 8 | |
| 42 ® 72 to 48 ® 90 | 72 ® 108 | 8 to 10 |
Napkin sizes have grown smaller over time, and they are not particularly standardized. Hundreds of years ago, they were truly blanketlike—in the eigh-teenth century, perhaps a square yard or even larger—but more petite napkins are now the rule, as the expectation is that you will not soil your hands, face, or clothes while eating, or at least not much. In general, the more formal the occasion, the more ample the napkin should be. Luncheon napkins may be from 12 × 12 to 18 × 18 inches. Cocktail napkins will be even smaller. Dinner napkins vary from 18 × 18 to 24 × 24 inches. Banquet napkins may be from 24 × 24 to 32 × 32 inches.
Good Choices. Linen, cotton, rayon, and blends of these with synthetic fibers are all sensible choices for tablecloths and napkins, depending on your goals. To avoid or reduce ironing, choose tablecloths and napkins in permanent-press fabrics or fabrics made of synthetic fibers and their blends. For best launderability, choose untreated white cotton and linen, but plan to iron. Less absorbent fabrics, such as synthetics, blends, and resin-treated cloth, do not make ideal napkins. For formal and elegant tables, choose damask in linen or cotton. Generally speaking, you get greater durability in linens with greater weight. Those of us with a budget usually aim to have one or two elegant tablecloths for special occasions and some relatively casual ones for ordinary uses.
Extra work in laundering and ironing will usually be required if you choose tablecloths that are embroidered, have cutwork, or are lace or trimmed with lace. Although handmade lace of natural fibers is expensive and requires thoughtful laundering and ironing, machine-made lace is often easy to care for—machine-washable or no-iron—and affordable.
Choosing Upholstery
Functional properties to look for
Durable
Abrasion-resistant
Strong
Ultraviolet light-resistant
Nonfading
Nonshrinking or preshrunk
Colorfast
Nonpilling
Nonshedding
Nonstatic
Good hand (not harsh, slick, or scratchy)
Flame-resistant
Care Characteristics. The most important care consideration is to make sure that the fabric of your upholstery is cleanable by the method you prefer to use: home or professional wet cleaning (a new professional cleaning technique that can often replace dry cleaning) or shampooing, or professional dry cleaning. If you plan on wet cleaning, you must inquire carefully about colorfastness and shrinking. Soil-repellant and soil-release treatments are always a good idea for upholstery fabrics.
Good Choices. Almost all fibers have been adapted for use in upholstering, and well-designed blends and synthetics are often good choices. When you choose a synthetic or blend, inquire about whether it is prone to the problems that synthetics often face, such as pilling and static. People most often go wrong when they buy a fabric for upholstering that is intended for draperies, apparel, or some other use, and thus lacks the strength and abrasion-resistance that upholstery fabrics need for enduring the hard wear they will receive. Silk is elegant and beautiful, but it stains readily and cannot take much abrasion; thus it is not a practical choice for places that will get hard use or in places where children and pets will play.
Choosing Rugs and Carpets
Functional Properties to Look For
Durable
Abrasion-resistant
Resilent
Nonpilling
Nonshedding
Nonstatic
Ultraviolet light—resistant
Nonfading
Colorfast
Flame-resistant
Care Characteristics. As with upholstery, the most important consideration is to make sure that a rug or carpet you are buying can be cleaned by the method you would plan to use on it: Can it be cleaned by home shampooing using a machine or professional cleaning, or must it receive gentle hand cleaning? Soil-repellancy or soil-release treatments are a good idea, and some carpets are more naturally stain-resistant than others.
Good Choices. See chapter 16, “Textile Furnishings.”
Choosing Carpet Padding, Cushion, or Underlay
Functional Properties to Look For
Level of cushioning
Proportional to carpet
Insulating effect
Noise
Heat and cold
Nonmildewing
Care Characteristics. This is not usually an issue. Carpet padding is generally cared for by vacuuming now and then.
Good Choices. Other things being equal, choose thinner padding for thinner carpets and thicker padding for thicker carpets, but the Carpet and Rug Institute recommends a maximum thickness of 7/16 of an inch. For high-traffic areas, choose less cushiony, harder types. It is tiring to walk a great deal on a highly cushioned surface, and also difficult when you are wearing high-heeled shoes. For low traffic, softer types of padding will work. A thicker padding is good where you want noise insulation.
Have the pad cut to the correct size by the vendor. If you have a carpet pad that does not extend to the edge of the carpet, over the years this can cause premature wear; an unattractive line can develop at the place in the carpet where the pad stops. The thicker the pad, the worse this problem can be. A carpet pad that is larger than the carpet is unsightly.
When evaluating durability, remember that jute will mildew if it gets damp and a synthetic will not. Fiberglass-based pads are recommended for high-traffic areas and for rugs on which office chairs or other rolling or frequently moved furniture are placed; they last longer and are less likely to disintegrate under such pressure than other types of padding. Sponge rubber is available in various thicknesses and degrees of firmness, but only thinner, firmer types will be sufficiently durable for high-traffic areas. Polyurethane foam is also available; the type I have experience with was best suited for lighter uses, as in a small child’s room. Felted padding made of hair is sold in many thicknesses and degrees of firmness, but it is not very durable and should not be used in heavy traffic areas.
Clothing
To Stay Cool, Look For
Fabrics of linen, cotton, rayon
Absorbent fibers
Smooth fibers and fabrics (avoid spun fibers, or napped, pile, or fuzzy fabrics)
Open, smoother, looser weaves or knits such as mesh or seersucker
Lightweight fabrics
To Stay Warm, Choose
Wool and acrylic
Fuzzy fibers, crimped fibers
Fabrics with pile or nap
Tight weaves, thick weaves, thick knits, satin weaves, especially in heavier weights
Heavyweight fabrics
Dark colors
To Reduce Ironing, Choose
Wool, silk, permanent-press and wash-and-wear clothes, any woven synthetic other than rayon
Seersucker
Waffle weaves and similar weaves
Napped or pile fabrics such as flannel, corduroy, or velvet
Knits of all sorts
Corduroy
To Gain Protection from the Sun’s Ultraviolet Rays, Choose
Tightly woven fabrics (avoid loose or open weaves such as basket weaves or gauze)
Blue denim
Satin weaves and other smooth-surface weaves
Fabrics treated to render them UV blocking
Dark colors
Dry clothes—wet ones transmit more UV radiation
See also chapter 20, pages 322-23.
* Automatic dishwashing detergents are exempted from the ban on phosphates because of the difficulty the industry has had in attempting to formulate an effective nonphosphate product. However, some “ultra” versions of automatic dishwashing detergents do not contain phosphates.