Upholstery Velvet – Sourcing Luxury Velvet (Mohair) in The UK
Posted: 16 February, 2011 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Domestic Fabric, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, Product Comments, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fabric, interior design, mohair velvet, mohair velvets, textured upholstery fabric, Upholstery, upholstery linen, upholstry fabric, velvet, velvets Leave a comment »
Luxury Mohair Velvet For Upholstery
Luxury Upholstery Velvet is notoriously difficult for interior designers to consistently source. Sourcing a generic velvet is easy enough but often velvets vary greatly in quality with many being relatively cheap and scoring relatively well with Martindale results but they just look ‘cheap’. The look and feel of the velvet are, after all, two of several important reasons why you are specifying it in the first place.
A further problem is the composition. When, for example, you say you want a Mohair Velvet that is what you want: a velvet made out of Mohair and NOT lots of other things PLUS a bit of Mohair.
Whilst Mohair velvets are generally very good across the market they too can vary significantly in quality. So even when you buy a Mohair Velvet you are not necessarily getting the durable, luxury, fantastic looking product that you hoped for.
Further complications come when looking at Velvets made of a mix of yarns. Well some of the mixed fibre yarns too are actually excellent in quality!
So I guess I’m saying that there really is no sure and fast way of knowing that what you are buying without actually seeing the fabric AND being assured of its technical characteristics, notably Martindale as we are considering upholstery here.
Most KOTHEA luxury upholstery velvets have inherent Martindale rub tests of in excess of 20,000 rubs with several collections exceeding 100,000 rubs fo rcontract usage – 20,000 Martindale being eminently suitable for domestic upholstery.
In addition to non-velvet, textured upholstery we have many luxury velvets suitbale for upholstery including Italian Silk Velvet (high quality, luxury velvet), Cashmere & Silk Velvet (the ultimate velvet), trevira Velvet (inherent fire retardancy), Mohair Velvet (high quality, luxury velvet),
Most of our velvet is available by the metre with no minimum quantities.
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Fabric Tips #13: Velvet Curtain Making
Posted: 14 February, 2011 Filed under: Curtain Fabric, Fabric Tips, interior design, interior designer | Tags: contemporary fabric, contract fabric, contract fabrics, cotton velvet, curtain, curtain fabric, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fabric, Fabric Tips, ideas for designers, interior design, linen velvet, Mohair, mohair velvets, silk velvet, silk velvets, textured upholstery fabric, upholstry fabric, velvet, velvets 3 Comments »
Image by tenz1225 via Flickr
Here are some additional pointers to consider when you are making a curtain using a velvet. Remember that a velvet is just a type of fabric and the fibre(s) that the velvet is made from is important.
So for example we would always recommend that you line a curtain. This gives a superior appearance but also reduced the amount of light going through the fabric hence limiting as much as possible the effect of any fading.
If the velvet has a pile that can be flattened in one direction then we would recommend that you have the pile going downwards for SHINY velvet fabrics and PATTERNED VELVETS.
If however you make up the curtain with the pile upwards then this will deepen the colour so you cold make the curtains this way for cotton velvets and Trevira Velvet and Mohair velvets.
These are general guidelines and it is not necessarily wrong if you make up the curtain ‘the other way’ just so long as you understand the implications to the finished look and performance of the material.
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Fabric Tips #12: Rolling a velvet
Posted: 14 February, 2011 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Curtain Fabric, Domestic Fabric, Fabric Design, Production & Details, Fabric Tips, interior design, interior designer, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: contract fabric, contract fabrics, curtain fabric, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fabric, Fabric Tips, fabrics, interior design, linen velvet, mohair velvet, mohair velvets, silk, silk velvets, Textile, textured upholstery fabric, Upholstery, upholstery fabric, velvet 4 Comments »
Image via Wikipedia
You’ve just ordered a new velvet and unrolled it to admire your purchase. But how do you re-roll it?
When you roll almost any fabric you should have the face on the inside. With a velvet this is the pile so you have the pile on the inside.
Some, but not all, velvet piles stand straight up others will ‘lay down’. for the former it does not matter which way you then roll the fabric (provided the pile is on the inside). However for typically longer pile which lays down (ie you can brush it flat with your hand in one direction only) then you should roll the fabric down the pile as you return it to its roll.
Hopefully that made sense. Good luck.
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Fabric Tips #11: Mohair Velvet – How To Store
Posted: 14 February, 2011 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Fabric Design, Production & Details, Fabric Tips, interior design, interior designer, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: cotton velvet, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fabric, Fabric Tips, interior design, linen velvet, mohair velvet, mohair velvets, silk velvet, Upholstery, upholstry fabric, velvet, velvets 4 Comments »Image via Wikipedia - Alpaca Wool can be made into luxurious alpaca velvet...if you can find it
How to store Velvet.
The same instructions apply to all velvets.
Some background first: As an interior designer you buy and handle many fabrics. You may have wondered why some fabrics come in rolls of up to 100m whereas other come in much smaller lengths. Is this because of their value? The likelihood of them being sold quickly enough? Or perhaps longer lengths of some fabrics would be just to heavy for someone in a warehouse to physically carry or indeed too heavy for a courier to carry? Or perhaps it’s something to do with the thickness of the roll?
Well there is some truth no doubt in all of these reasons and others to. But one very important consideration with a velvet and especially with a Mohair velvets is the weight of the fabric and the weight of the fabric ON ITSELF. Because velvets have a pile they are thicker and heavier than other fabrics as they contain more material; similarly some velvets such as many mohair velvets have a dense pile…again more fabric and more weight.
There comes a point when the sheer weight of the roll of fabric becomes too much for the pile of the first part of the wrapped fabric on the roll and the inherent weight of all the fabric can cause damage to the pile. So velvets and especially mohair velvets have smaller lengths on the roll. Sometimes 25m but sometimes also 40m and 50m per roll.
So the length of fabric on a roll will be impacted by the weight of the fabric per linear metre AND the fact that a pile fabric can be more affected by added weight than other fabric.
So, how to store.
1. Store horizontally
2. Store with no other, external weight applied to the fabric.
3. Covered up to avoid exposure to dirt and dust i the air -especially if stored for long periods
Typically you will find that many of our velvets come to you in special containers where the velvet is on a roll and suspended by special cardboard ends in the boxes. For small volumes of velvet on a single roll there is often no need for these special containers. Where the velvets are supplied in suspended roll containers it is safe to store the velvet in this form. Ideally youwould have a horizontal racking system for rolls of fabric as lengths can easily be cut off as and when you need them but cleary most interior designers do not have this facility.
The safest method of course is to let your supplier hold the stock and order cut lengths from them. It de-risks you damaging the fabric. Unless of course the supplier can specifically reserve entire rolls just for you, you would have the potential problem of dye lot or batch variation of colour with many fabric dyes. There would normally be a charge for an additional service such as this.
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Upholstery Linen – Sourcing Luxury Upholstery Linen in the UK
Posted: 17 January, 2011 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Domestic Fabric, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: Business, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fabric, faux leather upholstery, ideas for designers, interior design, linen, natural linen, natural linens, Textile, Textiles and Nonwovens, Upholstery, Upholstery and Furnishing, upholstery fabric, upholstery linen, upholstry fabric 5 Comments »
Upholstery Linen
Upholstery Linen is notoriously difficult for interior designers to source. Sourcing linens for curtains is easy enough but often linens are not woven with sufficient strength to score Martindale results that are high enough to warrant using the fabric for upholstery.
Some suppliers can be a little evasive and will quote the weight of the linen as a measure of the linen’s quality. The implicaiton being that the higher the weight the better suited the fabric will be for upholstery. There is some thuth in that implication but you cannot say for certain that a high weight linen is inherently suitable for upholstery. Get the Martindale!
Most KOTHEA luxury upholstery linens have inherent Martindale rub tests of around 20,000 rubs with one range further strengthened to 85,000 rubs for contract usage – 20,000 Martindale being eminently suitable for domestic upholstery.
Furthermore when buying upholstery- (or curtain-) linen you need to know whether or not it will shrink when washed. Linen ALWAYS shrinks. So what you have to find out is whether or not it has been pre-shrunk before you buy it. A common way of pre-shrinking linen is through the sanforisation process.
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Here are the details of our new 2011 upholstery linens that are named Recline, Relax and Restful. We have many others, these are just the new ones:
Name: Recline
Usage: Luxury Contract Upholstery
Colourways: 24
Width: 135cm
Comp: 54% Li 35% Co 11% Pa
Weight: >350g/m2
Notes: Martindale >85,000
Name: Relax
Usage: Luxury Domestic Upholstery
Colourways: 24
Width: 135cm
Comp: 100% Li
Weight: >265 g/m2
Notes: Martindale >15,000
Name: Restful
Usage: Heavyweight Luxury Domestic Upholstery
Colourways: 4
Width: 135cm
Comp: 100% Li
Weight: >470 g/m2
Notes: Martindale >45,000
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Black Velvet – Even Better Italian Silk Velvet In Black
Posted: 22 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic Fabric, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, modern interiors, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: contemporary fabric, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, mohair velvet, mohair velvets, silk velvet, silk velvets, textured upholstery fabric, upholstery fabric, upholstry fabric, velvet, velvet upholstery, velvets 4 Comments »
Black Velvet – only to be enjoyed by those who appreciate that black is the new black! KOTHEA have a range of velvets with shades of black colourways in most of those velvet collections.
“Black Diamond” is the colourway name for the Italian Silk Velvet (100% Silk Pile) with the code 777-108-900.
You can get black silk velvet samples here from KOTHEA if you are a trade professional. Just click the link.
KOTHEA velvets are the best in the market. We only sell top market fabrics, mostly to top European Interior Designers and Architects. Here are some more bits of technical information on our black Italian Silk velvet fabric:
Width: 140cm
Composition: 100% Silk Pile
No repeat, plain.
Abrasion: Martindale 20,000.
Available from stock, normal delivery within 5 days.
Minimum Order length: 2m
What is fabric sanforisation, sanforised, sanforising?
Posted: 14 September, 2010 Filed under: Product Comments | Tags: contract fabric, cotton, curtain fabric, Design, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fabric, Fabric Tips, ideas for designers, interior design, natural fabric, natural fabrics, Shirt, silk, Textile 3 Comments »
Image by rogue-designs via Flickr
Sanforising is a finishing technique for already woven fabric.
Interior Designers do not need to know the detail of exactly what happens. So, in brief, the process is usually associated with cotton fabric and often also with shirting fabric. The idea behind sanforising is to pre-shrink the fabric. Clearly any shrinkage after the fabric has been made up may cause problems and Interior Designers DO need to be aware of that!
When sanforised fabric is subsequently made up into curtains or used on upholstery the naturally occurring effects of fabric stretching are reduced, but like many natural fabrics some further shrinkage could occur.
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As a general rule: more tightly woven fabrics tend to shrink less.
The sanforisation process involves stretching and heating damp fabric over a series of rollers
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Moleskin Upholstery Fabric
Posted: 13 August, 2010 Filed under: Domestic Fabric, home decor, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, modern interiors, Upholstery | Tags: domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, ideas for designers, interior design, natural fabrics, upholstery fabric, upholstry fabric 1 Comment »
Moleskin Fabric is an unusual fabric for upholstery, usually associated with clothing. KOTHEA moleskin is a premium moleskin specifically designed for upholstery with Martindale Rubs between 20,000 and 30,000. Moleskin is often a blend of cotton and linen; however KOTHEA‘s 100% cotton moleskin is extremely tightly woven ensuring that a luxurious look and feel is guaranteed. The overall look is similar to suede yet more exclusive and durable.
Cashmere Throws – Luxury Refined From KOTHEA
Posted: 26 July, 2010 Filed under: Domestic Fabric, home decor, interiordesign, interiors | Tags: cashmere throw, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, throws 1 Comment »Cashmere is the most exclusive wool practically available for interiors use. It is sometimes called Pashmina, and a few other things, but essentially Cashmere is what the wool really is and it rarely comes from Kashmir!
There are one or two wools that are possibly ‘better’ (ie warmer or softer) but they are extremely expensive (such as Vicuna). They are SO expensive and ‘rare’ that you will never come across them in reality unless you work in a very niche area of the fashion fabrics market. I have never even heard about such fabrics being available for interiors use, let alone seen or touched them. Although I would imagine it would not be dissimilar from cashmere!
Which brings me back to Cashmere Throws.
Maybe you already have a Cashmere Throw, or possibly a Cashmere scarf. They feel wonderful. It is not just marketing hype either, there are a variety of technical reasons why the Cashmere yarn makes fabrics that are warmer and softer to the touch than any other woolen yarn.
Yet there remains a huge variation in price from one Cashmere throw to the next. Why?
We have struggled to answer that question ourselves. Cashmere Throws can retail at £2,000. Yet the quality is only very good. Scarves too can easily cost several hundreds of pounds (and upwards).
So we are about to release Cashmere Throws that are better than everyone else. We are using: higher quality, thicker yarns than anyone else; sourcing our own designs, qualities and colours from the best mills.
I can guarantee that if you put one of our throws next to any competing alternative you would always choose a KOTHEA Cashmere Throw. We would even let our competitor choose the criteria that they wish to compete on! We are SO confident that our throws win on all counts.
Or you could go and buy one for £2,000 from somewhere else and be unsure that you have the best.
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A Chat With Verity du Sautoy – Her Thoughts On Winter Fabrics
Posted: 7 February, 2012 | Author: Nathalie Arrigone | Filed under: Companies, contemporary interiors, Contract Fabric, Domestic Fabric, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, Press Releases, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: cashmere throw, Cashmere wool, contemporary fabric, contract fabric, contract fabrics, cushion fabric, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fabric, faux leather upholstery, ideas for designers, interior design, KOTHEA, luxury cashmere throw, luxury fabric, mohair velvet, mohair velvets, natural fabric, silk velvet, Textile, textured upholstery fabric, upholstery fabric, upholstery linen, upholstry fabric, velvet, velvets | Leave a comment »Truly beautiful Cashmere Silk Velvet by KOTHEA
KOTHEA Fabric Picks For A Chilly Winter’s Day
With Verity du Sautoy of KOTHEA.
We love the seasons. All have their beauties and all have touched our senses in memorable ways over the years. Winter is no exception: lower, more balanced light; quietness and chaos with both the shopping and the weather; festive celebrations; the cuddle of a loved one; the hope and expectation of early spring flowers grasping for rare and tiny glimmers of light; and, perhaps, the welcomed warmth of a beautiful fabric.
Some of my best memories are centred on family: a warm fire; a little baby; or a bouncing toddler. Then an old children’s classic on the iPlayer watched on my Mac as it balances precariously on an elegant coffee table. I stroke my children’s hair with one hand and rest my other hand on my sofa. A generous cushion is warm, encapsulating and a bit of fun for the little ones to hide under. The curtains are not yet fully drawn but they smooth the boundary to the cold outside and give us tantalising glimpses of the world beyond – should we venture too close to the sheers that offer the final, soft protection from the elements.
Dominika B Tana Lawn
I work for a fabric company. I love fabric. I can’t pretend that it (fabric) is a be-all and end-all to life and that somehow it will make your life complete. It can’t. But what it clearly can do is complete the sensory experiences in the parts of life that, if you choose, you have control over…the parts of your home. Memories are not just photo-like snapshots in your brain; they are stored, multi-sensory splashes of emotion.
Here are my Winter picks. They are actual ‘picks’ that I’ve recently purchased or are about to purchase.
Take my sofa as an example. My sofa isn’t Read the rest of this entry »
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