Fabric glossary
2x1: 2x1 fabric has two warp yarns for every weft yarn. It is commonly used for western shirts, painter pants and other hard wearing garments.
3x1: 3x1 fabric has three warp yarns for every weft yarn. This is the most common weaving style for the selvage denim used in our jeans.
Cheese dye: The yarns are wound onto bobbins with many holes which the dye can pass through to add color to the wrapped thread. Unlike indigo rope dying, this method dyes the cores of the yarns.
Crosshatch: A unique type of denim created by mixing uneven warp and weft yarns, resulting in a square, grid-like pattern in the weave.
Grin Through: Good grin though denim has clear diagonal lines of white weft yarns showing on the surface.
Hank dye: In this dying method, yarns are set into a twisted "hank" shape and dipped into the dye. This is a small batch method and cannot dye a lot of yarns at once, but the yarns are dyed without being placed under tension.
Nep: Nep yarn is created when knotted or entangled fibers are included for a unique, textural fabric.
Oz/sqy: Weight in ounces per square yard. Atlantic Standard specifies light denim as being up to 12oz/sqy, medium as 12-14oz/sqy, and heavy denim as anything over 14oz/sqy.
Right- and Left-hand Denim: Specifies whether a fabric’s diagonal lines run from left bottom to right top (right-hand) or right bottom to left top (left-hand).
Rope Dye: Considered the best method for indigo dyeing, rope dyeing involves twisting during the dye process, ensuring that the color does not penetrate into the core of the yarn, leaving it white. The white will show after the indigo color fades on the surface, and the yarn will fade faster than a fully-dyed yarn.
Sanforized: This pre-shrinking process reduces further fabric shrinkage once yarns are woven into fabric and the fabric is sewn into a garment.
Slub: Slub yarns are purposefully spun with an uneven, thick-and-thin quality that gives denim unique color fading and character.
Sulfur dye: Sulfur dye is a specific type of dye which (unlike reactive dyes) fades over time. Black jeans that are sulfur dyed will fade over time like indigo jeans.
Warp: Lengthwise yarns in a loom are called warp yarns.
Weft: Crosswise yarns in a loom are called weft, or filling.