Fabrics made of natural fibers as cotton or linen look nice and show a soft fall but they have a big disadvantage. They are very sensible to sunlight and tend to fade out. With the high light intensity in our area this can already be seen after a relatively short time, especially with dark colours or patterns. We therefore don't recommend the use of naturtal fibers on windows with intense sunlight.
In addition most of these fabrics show a significant shrinkage when washing. Even a quite small shrinkage of 1% can cause harm the appearance of a curtain. With a curtain height of for example 2,50 m this shrinkage would be 2,5 cm and show a clearly visible change.
In general, but even more on windows with strong sunlight we recommend to use fabrics made of sinthetic fibers as poliester or acrylic fibers. They show a higher light fastness and hence their colours stay vibrant for a long time. In addition they don't show any significant shrinkage.
Semi-tranparent fabrics for voiles are available in many grades of transparency from nearly completely transparent thin fabrics to stronger weaves that already provide a certain privacy, however, still letting pass light. A very popular style is linen-type weave which nowadays no more has to be real linen as there are some nearly identical weaves made of poliester.
The next level is made up by opaque fabrics for curtains that provide privacy even al night. Dim-outs that do not block 100% of the light also belong to this group.
And last but not least, there are the blackout fabrics which block out light completely. Here we can distinguish between acrylic-coated fabrics with normally up to four layers and triple-weave fabrics which achieve to block out light by three interwoven layers using a black yarn as center.
Coated fabrics nowadays aren't comparable anymore to the old-fashioned aluminium-looking hotel blackouts. They are made in many different styles and textures and should survive washing. It is, nevertheless, recommendable to hand-wash them.
Triple-weave fabrics, however, can also be machine-washed without any problems. Because of the central black yarn they mostly are darker coloured.
The times when fabrics only were of 1,40 m width have long gone. Although some manufacturers still insist in that it is not possible to maintain the quality, today's fabrics are nearly all (also high quality fabrics) woven in "double width", i.e. 2,80 m or more. There are fabrics even made in significantly more than 3 m width. This simplifies manufacture of curtains and reduces cost because even larger curtains can be made in one piece.
We have approximately 400 sample hangers and books from manufacturers and distributors like
To the present day nearly everybody has found the correct fabric for his curtains within this range.
And, of course, we also have samples of fabrics suitable for upholstery and for outdoors.
If you would like to learn more we will be pleased to give advice.
Simply call us or send us a Mail, WhatsApp or the Contact Form.
Or even better visit us in our Showroom in El Toro.