All About Looks is a small boutique located in Lubbock Texas down in the depo district. I would never have expected to find a gem like this store in the downtown area of the hub city, however upon arriving at All About Looks I quickly realized the quality of the service that could be provided at this store.

               The staff, all family, was knowledgeable about everything in the store and the trends that are big right now. Nancy and her daughters, Lindsey and Page, started out telling us about the different types of fabric that they have in the show room. The trend right now is moving towards natural fibers such as linen, which is taking the place of silk, and mohair (“comes from…Mo’s”). The family told us about the importance as a designer in knowing the fabrics and what they are good for and even more important what they are not good for. A good note that most people don’t understand is that just because a fabric is heavy it does not automatically mean that the fabric is durable, you have to look at how tightly woven the fibers are (velvet is very durable because the fivers are so tightly woven). To find out how tightly woven the fibers are the manufacture’s use a test called the Wesinback test, or the double rub test. The sisters told us that in commercial use, where a fabric is going to see a lot of traffic in its life, you wouldn’t want to use anything under forty to fifty thousand double rubs. Another fabric that is becoming popular is jute, or burlap, however you wouldn’t want to use it on furniture because it would be way too rough and scratchy on skin. Burlap is a fabric that would be really great to use on the backs of furniture because it can go with anything and it is so durable. Bamboo is one of the most sustainable fabrics there is, it grows fast and it can be made very soft. Polyester is not a natural fiber however it is very popular because it can emulate almost any type of fabric, but the girls at the store told us not to call it polyester because most people have a bad idea of polyester because of what it used to be, so it is better to say that its fo-leather, or whatever fabric the polyester is imitating. One of the most interesting fabrics that we were shown was the truck tarp fabric, died and embroidered recycled from truck tarps.

               Aside from the fun aesthetics of fabrics it is very important to know and understand the codes for commercial design in the area that you are practicing interior design. However a good rule of thumb is that if it passes the California code it will most likely pass the local code in your area. An easy way to find out what the local codes are is to contact the local fire marshal or the university in the area will usually have a different fire marshal. If a fabric is not already fire retardant a specialist can treat it so it will become flame retardant. Only if it says inherently flame retardant though do you not have to worry about washing away the flame retardant.

               Over all this field trip was very educational and it really did help me to understand fabrics better. The store owner and her daughters where able to speak about the materials in an enthusiastic and informative way that made it very easy to not only learn but stay interested in the topic.

Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute

The Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute is a researches for cotton breeders and public agencies. On the first day of our field trip to the institute our guide Mr. Arain gave us a private tour that was not much unlike the television show “How it’s Made”. He walked us through the different factory rooms which all had different functions, and taught us about the equipment that was used there.

We started out in the warehouse and saw the massive bundles of cotton there waiting to be cleaned and spun. From there we saw two different processes for cleaning the fibers, carding and combing. The carding and combing processes are a mechanical process which breaks up the fiber and then puts them back together so they are running parallel with each other rather than clumping and crossing, making them into the yarn form so that they can be spun. The combed yarn is more pricy because the combing process requires additional work and cost to manufacture after the alignment process. There are four processes after combing before the yarn can be spun; those steps are lap former, where slivers are fed to form a lap to a compact form. After that the comber goes through the fibers and smoothes them out creating a finer more luxurious yarn quality. Slivers of different fibers are twisted together to form a blended strand through a process called roving. After all of these long processes the yarn is finally ready to be spun. The spinning and winding room was probably the most interesting, huge long machines stretched the length of the room each with their own spinning tools. some used ring spinning, which is a method used to spin yarn in a continuous process. After the yarn is spun it is wound around a colorful plastic rotating spinner. Yarn is used to make textiles and fabrics through a variety of processes, we where shown the process of weaving at the very end of our tour.

The Carding process is much less demanding of a process than the combing process. Like the combing process the carding process uses wires to separate the fivers and pull them into parallel lines. A clump of fibers is formed and then pulled through a machine into a strand of parallel fibers that resembles a soft rope. Carded yarn goes through an open-end spinning process, which doesn’t use a spindle like the ring spinning process. The Example that our guide used is to imagine opening a clothes dryer while it is still rotating and grab the sleeve of a shirt and start pulling, not only would the shirt be pulled from the dryer but a long line of clothes would follow attached like a string of yarn. Because the individual strands, like the clothes, are spun together as they are pulled out and the wrapped onto one of the colorful plastic bobbins. The open-end spinning method is much faster and much less labor intensive than the ring spinning method, however the open-end method is used only for courser counts of fiber so the fabrics made from the open-end method have a lot more fuzz and are not as resistant to wear and tear.

Overall the tour of the Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute was  informational and a good experience. not only did we learn about the machines but it helped us to understand why specific fabrics where used for different and varying applications. The knowledge gained from this particular experience will certainly be used in our design future.

LEATHER

Animal Hide Fabrics are some of the oldest manufactured materials, the use of skins for clothing and shelter date back more than three thousand years, it’s no wonder leather is so commonly used even today. Leather is a material that can come in almost any color; it can be dyed, tanned, and distressed. Through ought the decade’s fads have come and gone but leather has remained a key element in the design world; weather it was the grunge of the nineties or the mod fashion from the sixties leather has remained a staple.

In ancient civilizations human’s hunted animals to stay alive, over time it became natural to not only use the animals for food but to also use the animals for clothing and shelter. Leather proved to be more durable and water resistant than previously used materials like fur and after learning how to preserve the material leather became a prominent tool for survival. Ancient humans used leather to keep them warm during the winter, to keep a shelter over their head, and many other ways; like ancient civilizations, today we use leather for a wide variety of products. Not only do we use leather for clothing and shoes but we use it for furniture and lighting.

 Leather is created be taking an animal skin and treating it with a tanning agent which allows the skin to be durable without decaying. After the hide is tanned it will last a long time and the materials strength will be increased, oil is used to enhance the richness and flexibility of the hide so that it is not so rigid. Some of the qualities that make leather so desirable are it resistance to scratching and abrasion, its resistance to shrinking and stretching, and its ability to breath. Leather is one of the only natural materials that allows for both ventilation and evaporation, this means that during the summer your leather has the ability to breath and during the summer it has the ability to keep you warm. When used in furniture design leather is one of the most dependable choices because of its durability and timelessness. The most common use for leather is shoes and shoe soles, that should tell you enough how stable this material is. When using leather in an interior there is very little worry involved; there is no need to consider whether or not leather will be in fashion in the next five years, because unless you have chosen a fuchsia leather arm chair, leather is timeless and classic. There is not much wear and tear when it comes to this product, so minimal up keep is a plus and this material is suitable for a lot of use. Let’s say you are designing a seating area for a major hotel lobby, these couches and arm chairs are going to be seeing a lot of backsides, leather is going to be able to stand up to the excessive use that an everyday lobby seating area accumulates.

There are many different types of leather, hard leather and soft leather. Hard leathers are made by scraping the hide, treating it with lime, and drying it so that it becomes durable and rough. Soft leathers have many different types such as, full grain leather, top grain leather, and suede. Full grain leather is not altered past removing the hair and tanning while top grain leather is sanded on one side and given a grain on the other to hide qualities that may not be perfect. Suede is almost completely different than any other leather as it is cut from the inside of an animal hide making it soft on both sides and very susceptible to damage.

Many different types and processes of leather allow for a variety of styles that can fit any person’s lifestyle. Any interior would be well suited to house a leather sofa or ottoman, and the longevity of this versatile material lends to its popularity throughout its lifetime. A leather arm chair is a piece of furniture that can stay in families and in use for generations without being dated and without suffering from the normal wear and tear of its owner.