Woven Fabrics:

Woven fabrics are durable for washing and can be finished to yield many different properties (like being flame-retardant or water-repellant). They do not have much stretch because of the tightness of the yarns in the fabric. Yarn properties are important for the fabric’s performance.

If you want a more stretchy fabric you can add some elastomeric fibers (think Spandex)to the yarn.

Knit Fabrics:

Knit fabrics are comfortable and warm. Knit fabrics have stretch because of the looseness of the fabric’s yarn structure (compared to knits and most nonwovens).

Because of the looseness, the fabric can tighten up due to the mechanical action in laundering. That’s why knit fabrics shrink.

Nonwoven Fabrics:

Nonwoven fabrics are lighter and weaker than woven or knit fabrics. They don’t have much memory (for example, if you bend your elbow the fabric will retain that position and leave a pucker in the fabric) or laundering durability, making them unsuitable in durable clothing applications.

Since they are cheap to produce, they’re ideal for single-use products such as wipes, medical products, feminine hygiene products disposable diapers, etc.

Non-woven are flexible, porous, products consisting of one more fiber layer. The separate fibers may either be preferentially oriented in one direction or may be deposited in a random manner. They are bonded by chemical, thermal, or mechanical processes into textile products. Non-woven are mainly planar structures.

Characteristics of Non-woven Fabric:

The particular set of properties that a non-woven fabric may have is dependent upon the combination of factors in its production. The range of characteristics is wide.

The appearance of non-woven fabrics may be paper-like, felt like, or similar to that of woven fabrics.

They may have a soft, resilient hand, or they may be hard, stiff, or broadly with little pliability.

They may be as thin as tissue paper or many times thicker.

They also may be translucent or opaque.

Their porosity may range from low tear and burst strength to very high tensile strength.

They may be fabricated by gluing, heat bonding, or sewing.

The drapability of this type of fabric varies from good to none at all.

Some fabrics have excellent launderability; others have none. Some may be dry-cleaned.