When you're new to garment sewing, fabric names can get confusing pretty quickly. Quilting cotton. Lawn. Voile. Shirting. Linen. Canvas. Denim. They're all woven fabrics, but they don't behave the same way just because a pattern says “woven.”
Maybe you've sewn your first tote bag out of quilting cotton and you're ready to try making clothes. Or maybe you haven't started yet and you're looking at a wall of fabric wondering what you're supposed to choose.
Since we're an apparel fabric store, we're looking at these fabrics through the lens of garment sewing: which ones are easier to start with, what they work well for, and what you need to know before you cut into them.
There are three basic weave structures—plain, twill, and satin—and most of the fabrics we're covering here are plain weaves. Denim is our one twill.
These aren't hard-and-fast rules. There are always exceptions. Think of this as a starting point for understanding what different woven fabrics do and what they naturally lend themselves to.
1. Quilting Cotton
Quick Sewing Guide
| Laundering Tips | Quilting cotton is generally 100% cotton and should be prewashed for garment sewing to account for shrinkage. |
| Needle | Universal 70/10–80/12 |
| Stitch Length | 2.5 mm |
| We Love It For | Children's garments, structured tops, skirts and dresses |
| Keep in Mind | More body and less drape than many apparel fabrics; raw edges can fray. |
Quilting cotton is a good place to start because it's stable. It doesn't move around much while you're cutting, it's easy to press, and it behaves itself at the sewing machine.
You can absolutely make clothes with it. Just remember that quilting cotton tends to have more body and less drape than many apparel fabrics. It's useful when a little structure works in your favor, but less suited to a garment that's supposed to hang close to the body or move fluidly.
Emily's Fabric Note
Quilting cotton can vary quite a bit from one manufacturer to another. I'm a big fan of Ruby Star Society and Art Gallery Fabrics because their quilting cottons tend to have a softer hand and more drape than some of the heavier quilting cottons you may be used to sewing with.
Quilting cotton is also commonly around 44–45 inches wide. Keep that in mind—we'll come back to fabric width when we get to shirtings.
2. Lawn & Voile
Quick Sewing Guide
| Laundering Tips | On finer lawn or voile, consider serging or overlocking the cut ends before machine washing to help prevent excessive raveling. |
| Needle | 65/9 or 70/10 |
| Stitch Length | About 2.0 mm |
| We Love It For | Summer tops, blouses, lightweight dresses, linings and underlinings |
| Keep in Mind | Fine fabrics can shift or pucker; voile may be sheer. |
If quilting cotton feels comfortable but you're ready for something that feels more like an apparel fabric, lawn and voile are a good next step.
Cotton lawn is fine, smooth and semi-crisp without being stiff. Voile is also lightweight but tends to be softer and more sheer. Both work well when you want a light garment without jumping straight into something slippery or difficult to control.
Fine, sharp pins help here—I like fine glass-head pins. Staystitch curved or bias edges that could stretch out of shape. Both fabrics also lend themselves nicely to French seams, narrow hems and rolled hems.
Emily's Sewing Tip
On fine voile, backstitching can sometimes cause puckering. If your fabric isn't happy about it, leave your thread tails and knot them instead.
3. Linen & Linen Blends
Quick Sewing Guide
| Laundering Tips | Higher-linen-content fabrics may benefit from 2–3 prewashes to get more of the initial shrinkage out before cutting. I treat rayon-linen blends more gently and prefer to line dry them. |
| Needle | Choose based on fabric weight; a heavier or heavily slubbed linen may need a larger needle. |
| Stitch Length | About 2.5 mm for lighter linen; closer to 3.0 mm for heavier linen |
| We Love It For | Tops, dresses, skirts, pants and jackets |
| Keep in Mind | Linen comes in many weights, and fiber blends can change its drape, feel and care requirements. |
First, an important distinction: linen is a fiber, not a weave. Linen can be woven in different ways, but many of the linen and linen-blend fabrics you'll encounter for garment sewing are plain weaves.
Linen comes in a huge range of weights. A lightweight linen for a blouse and a heavier linen for pants or a jacket may need different needles and machine settings. Pay attention to blends, too. A linen-rayon fabric won't behave exactly like 100% linen.
Emily's Sewing Tip
Don't let linen get completely dry in the dryer. Pull it out while it's still slightly damp, then smooth and press it as it finishes drying. Trust me, those wrinkles are much easier to get out.
4. Cotton Shirting
Quick Sewing Guide
| Laundering Tips | Pull it from the dryer while it's still slightly damp, then hang it to finish drying. It'll make getting the wrinkles out much easier. |
| Needle | Around 70/10 for an average lightweight shirting |
| Stitch Length | About 2.5 mm |
| We Love It For | Tops, button-ups, dresses, skirts and pajamas |
| Keep in Mind | “Shirting” is a broad category, so look at the weight and drape of the individual fabric. |
Don't let the word shirting convince you that you have to make a shirt with it. It's a broad category, and many shirtings work just as well for dresses, skirts and other lightweight garments.
Many cotton shirtings are stable and easy to sew but have more of the drape and feel you'd expect from an apparel fabric.
Here's another difference you'll notice when moving beyond quilting cotton: width. Quilting cotton is commonly around 44–45 inches wide, while many apparel shirtings are around 54–60 inches wide. More width can mean less yardage and more room to lay out your pattern pieces without quite as much pattern Tetris.
5. Canvas
Quick Sewing Guide
| Needle | 90/14–110/18 depending on weight and number of layers |
| Stitch Length | About 3–4 mm for heavier canvas |
| We Love It For | Bags, pillows, utility vests, chore jackets and structured garments |
| Keep in Mind | Bulk builds quickly at seams and curves; canvas varies considerably in weight and drape. |
Canvas comes in different weights and fiber blends. We have linen-cotton canvases with much more drape, along with heavier canvases that are more rigid. For apparel, a lighter canvas can work well for a utility-style vest or chore jacket.
If you're newer to heavier fabrics, a vest can be a good place to start. You can bind the armhole instead of dealing with easing and setting a sleeve into bulky fabric.
As the canvas gets heavier, you may need a larger needle, longer stitch length and an adjustment to your presser-foot pressure. Don't automatically increase your thread tension. Test the same number of layers you'll be sewing in your project and adjust only if the stitches aren't balanced.
6. Denim
Quick Sewing Guide
| Laundering Tips | For raw denim, prewash up to 2–3 times before cutting if you want to account for as much initial shrinkage as possible. |
| Needle | Jeans/denim needle; choose the size based on fabric weight |
| Stitch Length | Increase as the denim gets heavier |
| We Love It For | Jeans, skirts, jackets, dresses and structured garments |
| Keep in Mind | Weight varies widely, and bulky seam intersections can create a lot of layers for your machine to sew through. |
Denim is the one fabric on our list that's typically a twill weave. Look closely and you'll usually see the diagonal lines created by the weave.
But the word denim doesn't tell you how heavy the fabric is. Lightweight denim for a shirt and heavy denim for work jeans are two different sewing experiences. As the fabric gets heavier, you'll generally need a larger needle and longer stitch length.
Pay attention to bulk, too. Your machine may sew through two layers without a problem and then have a very different opinion when it reaches a seam intersection with six or eight.
Emily's Key Takeaway
Whatever fabric you're sewing, test your needle, stitch length and tension on a scrap first. Fabric names give you a starting point, but the fabric sitting in front of you gets the final vote.
“Woven” is a starting point, but it isn't enough information to choose a fabric. Once you start looking at fiber content, weave, weight and drape, it gets much easier to understand why one woven works for a project and another doesn't.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Written by Emily Pritts, Owner of Boho Fabrics
Emily is the founder and owner of Boho Fabrics and an experienced sewist and sewing instructor. She studied fashion design and textiles at San Diego Mesa College and develops garment sewing and textile curriculum for The Design Studio at Boho Fabrics. She has worked with apparel fabrics professionally for more than a decade and writes about fabric and sewing from the perspective of a sewist, teacher and fabric shop owner.