Dyed Fabric

People purchase fabric for countless reason; look, feel, color, print and/or design, but Schott Textiles realizes that it is crucial to match the fabric to the intended end use and customer. And while stylish fabrics are often in demand, natural fabrics and the basic color palette including black & white are still the work horse of the wholesale industrial textile industry. 

Schott Textiles’ knowledge & practical experience is important when customers need dyed fabrics.  Knowing the important variables & demands of the end product can make the difference in a satisfied customer or not.  Schott Textiles can help you sort through all these variables to find the right fabric for the end use, casual trial and error can be an expensive and unnecessary approach when working with dyed fabric. 

Schott Textiles works with dye plants both domestically and overseas. Understanding the the capabilities of these dye plants and having long standing relationships is vital to sourcing the right materials in terms of quality and economic value. 

All greige fabrics can be dyed, bleached or printed, but not all fabric qualities are worth the time & expense of further processing. Better quality yarns & modern weaving are the starting point for quality fabrics. 

In general, the dyeing process itself involves three key steps; fabric preparation, dyeing and finishing. Fabric preparation ready’s the fabric for the particular dye/dyes that are about to be used. Prepping fabrics can involve a number of steps such as: scouring, desizing, mercerizing, bleaching & washing. 

The weaving of cloth was one of the first crafts developed by primitive man and was soon followed by the coloration of textiles by dyeing.  By comparison, the art of finishing textiles is a relatively recent development.  Finishing fabric was originally done through mechanical manipulation of cloth and later with the addition of sophisticated chemical processing. Finishing fabrics involves shrinkage control, hand/feel, fire resistance and the addition of water and added mildew repellency to name a few properties. Textile companies may also use high efficiency steam boilers to produce top-quality fabrics.

Bleaching is a way to remove all of the natural impurities from a fabric in order to prepare it for printing or dyeing. Additionally, some customers chose to bleach their goods white or bleached them optic white. It is important to understand that not all “white is white”, there can be many various shades of white with some leaning toward a yellow or blue cast. Fabrics that have been bleached tend to have a yellow cast. Fabrics that have been bleached optic white tend to have a blue cast because of the fluorescent materials that are added during the dye process. It is imperative to establish what shade of white is right for your end product.