Requirement of Fabric Spreading in Garment Industry

Spreading must achieve a number of specific objectives. The following points should be taken care off while spreading plies of fabric to form lay in order to achieve good cutting quality.

1. SHADE SORTING

The process of sorting rolls according to shade is known as shade shorting. Lays commonly require more than one roll of fabric to achieve enough plies in total. So obviously different lot or roll won’t have an exact shade match and a garment made from parts cut from the rolls of different shade lots would most likely show a shade variation between its different panels. Shade variation is already a big quality problem for garment industries. One garment- One shade this is been normally followed by every industry.

So, to avoid shade variation number of rolls of cloths of the same color are received, they should be sorted into batches such that shade differences between them are undetectable.

2.CORRECT PLY DIRECTION

There are various types of fabrics, in terms of surface direction, that are available in the market which is designed, either way, one way – either way, or one way only. If the fabric doesn’t have any particular nap direction then we can place the pattern in any way according to grainline but if the fabric has nap direction then we have to position pattern pieces in the same direction in the marker plan, so it is essential that the fabric is spread in a way that maintains that same direction. One garment- One shade-one direction this is been normally followed by every industry for napped fabric.
The best examples of such fabrics are velvet where a change in the direction of pattern placement would clearly show on the garment as different. Parts of the garment would show the nap of the fabric in different directions.

3. LAY STABILITY

The number of plies that to be spread in one particular lay depends on the thickness of the fabric and also the equipment being used for cutting. As such, a thicker fabric such as denim would have fewer plies in a lay, whereas a sheer fabric such as chiffon would have more plies in a lay. Care should be taken to spread neither too less nor too much extra plies then the prescribed no of plies in a lay to provide lay stability when the cutting equipment cuts through the plies. Also, the lay should be stable it should not get shrink before cutting this precaution is very important in wool fabric and fabric consist of Lycra yarn.

4. PLY ALIGNMENT

Ply should comprise the width and length according to marker plan but should have the minimum possible extra length and width outside those measurements. All the plies should be aligned to the edges from one side at least.

5. WIDTH OF FABRIC

Width is the base of marker planning and the different fabric width in rolls causes fabric loss. Fabric loss will be least if all the rolls will have the same width but the nature of textile material is such that the pieces of fabric as delivered from suppliers vary in width, both from role to role and to a lesser extent within the role. The marker plan is made to fit the narrowest width. The extra width of the fabric is distributed outside the edge of the marker plan. At the end, the ply should be cut off squarely allowing the minimum loss at both ends.

6. CORRECT PLY TENSION

It is important for the spreading to have correct ply tension i.e. neither slack nor stretched before cutting the fabric into garment parts. If the plies are spread with very low tension they will lie in ridges with irregular fullness. If plies are spread in a stretched state they will have tension while held in the lay, but will contract after relaxation or after cutting or during sewing, thus it causes shrinking the garment parts to a smaller size than the pattern pieces. This will increase garment rejection as measurements are very important in export quality garments.

7. FABRIC FAULTS IDENTIFICATION AND ELIMINATION

In fabric store fabric is been audited by 4-point inspection/ 10-point inspection but it is possible that some faults which somehow got missed should be marked with some identification so that they can be identified after cutting and faulty parts are changed. Also, spicing can be done to eliminate the fabric faults in spreading itself.

8. AVOIDANCE OF DISTORTION IN THE SPREAD

A layer of brown paper is spread at the bottom of spread in which laid glazed side down and rough side up. This helps to avoid ply slippage problem of the lowest plies of material in the spread when the straight knife base plate passes underneath. The glazed side of the paper facilitates the movement of straight knife within the spread and also if it is to be moved on a floatation table. The rough side gives stability to the lay by providing better friction between the paper and the lowest ply of fabric.