When in the business of decorating homes or providing products for home decorating, it is essential to understand home furnishing fabrics key terms. Fabrics are any soft material made by weaving, knitting, crocheting or pressing fibers together.

Home furnishing fabrics are used to cover furniture, windows, pillows and hung on walls or placed on tables as decorative textiles. Being able to use home furnishing fabrics key terms expertly will help in making the right purchasing choices for your business, as well as informing customer purchases in the following ways:

1. Choosing the right home fabrics will create the look that is most cohesive with the design of the entire room.

2. Understanding the home textile qualities will ensure that the customer is provided with the textile that best fits their needs.

3. Knowing what kinds of house fabrics are similar to other textiles will help to make the most cost-effective decisions.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Understand what house textiles are made of

Fabrics are either natural or synthetic, which means man-made, and there are pros and cons with each. Natural fibers commonly used in home furnishing textiles include silk, linen, wool and cotton. Synthetic fibers used in home textiles include acetate, acrylic, nylon, polyester and rayon.

I recommend: Find a complete list of synthetic and natural fabrics used for home decorating at Caroline Center. Go to Ditzy Prints to learn how to safely determine the content of a fabric by conducting a burn test on a small swatch of the fabric.

Learn about the weave of different furnishing fabrics

The weave of a fabric indicates how the fabric is woven together on a loom and not what fabric content the textile contains. Some common weaves used for decorating house fabric includes satin, brocade, damask and jacquard.

I recommend: Look at Fibre2fashion.com or Soller Composites for illustrations and descriptions of different weaves and the fabrics that come woven that way.

Know how weights of home fabrics differ

The weight of a fabric is the density of the fabric and the number of fibers woven into the fabric. It is measured by weight per square yard or meter. The same kinds of fabric can be light weight, medium weight or heavy weight. Weight is also sometimes classified as top-weight or bottom-weight.

I recommend: Find a guide explaining fabric weight at Favorite Fabrics. Use a fabric weight conversion chart like the one provided by Fashion-Incubator, if buying home decoration fabrics from overseas.

Recognize eco-friendly home furnishing fabric

There are increasingly more eco-friendly decorative furnishing fabrics available and at an affordable price. Eco-friendly fabrics include organic cottons of different weaves from knits to denim, hemp and bamboo. Eco-friendly fabrics are dyed and printed with low-impact, highly reactive dyes, which are best for the environment.

I recommend: Find a wide variety of eco-friendly home fabric at Crypton and HartsFabric.com.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Once you understand home furnishing fabrics key terms, you can combine a wide range of coordinating custom fabric products for the home that vary in content, such as satin for drapes and pillows, and brocade for furniture.

Professional decorators and interior designers have a vast array of resources at their fingertips thanks to the Internet, and knowing how to use these resources to locate the most durable and most beautiful home fabrics for your customers is essential. Whether your company's focus tends toward more upscale upholstery fabrics and design or more basic home furnishing textile and decorative services, there are producers and suppliers online who can deliver exactly what you need.

As you investigate your many options:

1. Start by giving traditional home furnishing fabrics wholesalers a try. While they may not offer the most unusual or unique designer upholstery fabrics, they will provide a huge and varied selection all in one place. As an added bonus they will usually offer far better prices than the designer houses as well.

2. When you've covered the basics, consider offering at least a small selection of upscale upholstery fabrics (if that's not exactly your focus) or a larger array (if that's your main market segment).

3. If you don't already, consider providing decorating services or other related products alongside home furnishing fabrics.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Finding traditional house fabric wholesalers online is a great way to start your search

Large wholesalers and distributors can offer you a bigger array of home furnishings textile choices than many of the smaller specialty suppliers, and usually at better prices, too.

I recommend: Barrow Industries has been servicing professionals in the house fabrics and decorating industries for three generations and is a great reliable resource. Joanne/J.F. Fabrics is another wholesaler and distributor of decorator fabrics.

Look to upscale producers of home fabrics to increase your business's offerings

Large wholesalers and suppliers can be great places to get what you need for your business at low prices, but sometimes there's no replacement for designer upholstery fabrics. When your clients demand the absolute best, go to these manufacturers for products you can't find anywhere else.

I recommend: Take a look at the websites of top design firms in the industry, such as Designtex, which offers not just furnishing fabrics but also every imaginable type of designer decorating material. Climatex, another design firm, prides itself on offering the finest in environmentally sound house textiles. Coral of Chicago is a firm specializing in more commercial applications.

Offer additional decorating accessories or custom fabric products for the home to gain business

Custom products or other decorating materials that you can offer alongside the expected upholstery and drapery fabrics are a great way to bring in extra revenue for your business.

I recommend: D-Raj International allows you to purchase custom drapery tassels, tiebacks and other accessories along with your drapery fabric order online, and Weavetec, Inc. offers its clients home textiles made from custom-dyed yarns.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  If possible, consider giving your clients more personalized service and attention by allowing them to browse all the most current offerings in decorative furnishing fabric from your suppliers themselves and procuring their choices for them, or even by supplying custom fabric products for the home.

Learning about furnishing fabrics can help advance your career, whether you're a retail furniture store owner, a store associate or independent furniture designer. Expanding your knowledge of home furnishing fabrics can be part of a larger course of study on interior design, but you can learn the basics of home fabrics with independent research on your part.

Training about home furnishing fabrics can take many different directions, including the different types of fabrics and their preferred uses, the difference between upholstery and lighter weight fabrics and current trends in interior design. You could also pursue the direction of science, finding products that make the best use of natural resources or ways to improve existing home fabrics with technology. Home textile training can include current trends in designer upholstery fabrics so that you can boost sales.

To boost your knowledge of textiles for the home, it helps to seek out information from a variety of sources, and continue to stay abreast of the latest news in the home products industry.

1. Pursue online training courses in furniture and house textiles.

2. Get additional training from brick-and-mortar interior design schools.

3. Attend trade shows related to custom fabric products for the home.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Gain knowledge about designer upholstery fabrics from online sources

Taking online courses is a great way to learn about the home textile industry without leaving your home or workplace. Through this investment in education, you can learn to sell upscale upholstery fabrics or how to stage or redesign a home's interior by incorporating upscale upholstery fabrics into the design.

I recommend: You can offer your sales staff online training and professional certification at the Furniture Training Company. The QC Design School offers online training and Professional certification as an International Design and Decorating Professional.

Learn about decorative furnishing fabric by taking interior design classes

You can learn more about house fabrics from universities as part of an interior design program. Many large universities offer interior design programs, as well as technical or specialty schools such as the Art Institute.

I recommend: The Textile Research and Training Institute (TRTI) at Eastern Michigan University offers coursework for those in the textile industry. The Art Institutes offer courses of study in a variety of fields related to home furnishing fabrics education and training, including interior design.

Get on top of trends in upscale upholstery fabrics at trade shows

Attending textile trade shows is a great way to learn hands-on about the home furnishing fabric industry. You can meet with producers of home textiles, learn about trends in decorative furnishing fabric, and make important business connections.

I recommend: You can find home furnishing fabric at the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago, one of the largest trade shows in the home furnishings industry, or at the Home Textiles Market Week.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Don't forget to look at local craft stores for ideas about the latest trends in home textile choices. You can purchase small samples of house fabric and develop your own book of sample ideas for your business.