Burn Testing

[Lady_Claira]

I was on vacation this week and took a trip with my grandmother to a bunch of thrift stores (because they are her favorite place to shop). I found 5 yards of different fabrics that I liked (two one yard pieces, and a three yard piece) and I paid a total of $2.00 for the whole set.

I have guesses on what the materials are, but I am not certain and I do want to know because it will effect whether or not I use it for garb or for something else. I know that you can do a burn test and a bunch of other things to try and figure it out, but I am not exactly sure how or what kinds of things to look for when I do such a test. But I assumed that the number of hard core sewers we have here would reveal quite a few people who do know and could help me out a bit.

Please and thank you.

[Lady L]

Place a small test piece of the fabric in something metal, such as a tin can or maybe an ashtray would work too. Light a match and touch it to the fabric. If it melts, it's polyester. If it becomes ashes and smells like burning hair, it's wool. Linene and cotton will also turn to ashes. That's all I know about it.

[isabelladangelo]

http://www.fabrics.net/fabricsr.asp

[Lady_Claira]

Thank you so much for the link, it was soo helpful.

I used the information on it and found that the one yard of tan fabric I found is probably a polyester. It was both burning and melting and smelled very sweet. The one yard of red fabric I found was the same way except that it was much harder to ignite. The three yards of blue that I really liked though, I believe are a cotton. They had a very steady flame that didn't waver for anything and it had the smoke smell that I love of burning paper/wood.

Thank you so much for the help!