Lance did his great "Exotic Materials" panel at FC. During and after, we talked about Antron fleece. This is the two-way stretch material (not the four-way) and goes by the nickname "Muppet fleece". It can stretch to about 150% of its relaxed length on one axis; the other direction has a negligible amount of stretch.
I've always wanted to experiment with this stuff. Since Lance was nice enough to give me some samples, I thought I'd run it through its paces here in my materials science lab (commonly known as the sewing room).
I started by doing some different seams, since the material is reputed for its seam-hiding nature. Here's the result:
Click to biggie-size it!Very nice. It looks that good in person, too. The seam methods, from L to R in the picture, are: serger, sewing machine, hand-sewn ladder stitch from front, hand-sewn blanket stitch from back.
Not a lot of difference between them. I think the ladder stitch shows the most because I'm not very good at that one; my "rungs" always skew slightly, resulting in bunching.
Now the stuff is also know for being easy to dye:
Click if you want fries with thatIt does indeed take dye well, resulting in a nice, even color. This sample was done with common Rit dye (indigo). This is what the piece looks like after all the post-dye rinsing. The color seems fast.
Dye process: (1) Wash fabric piece with mild detergent, (2) rinse, (3) immerse in warm-water dye bath for 30 minutes, (4) rinse until water runs clear, (5) handwash with mild detergent, (6) final rinse.
Fun material! Now to try to find a project where I need to use this... Hmm...
