Thread and weave: the two numbers that decide whether an order works
Textile orders rarely fail on craft. They fail on colour and on width — two numbers fixed before anyone sits down at a loom, and very expensive to correct once the cloth exists.
Every colour here was a decision. On a drawloom the pattern is a programme of cords, and each colour has to be tied in. Adding one colour is not a colour change — it is a change to the setup.
Photographed on a working loom in Nanjing. Not a client order.Why this family behaves differently
Dye lots. Colour is mixed per dye bath, and two baths of the same recipe do not match exactly. This is not a factory cutting corners; it is what dyeing is. The practical consequence is that a reorder will not match the first delivery unless the workshop reserved yarn from the original bath — and almost nobody does unless you ask before the first order, not after the second.
Width. A hand loom has a fixed width, and the width is the constraint that decides your cutting loss. Nanjing brocade comes off a wooden drawloom at roughly 70–80cm. If you need 40cm-wide strips, the other 38cm is not free material — it is waste you paid for. This is why a woven item quoted “by the metre” and an item quoted “by the finished piece” can differ by more than the weaving.
Centimetres per day. Yunjin is woven by two people on one large drawloom and advances a few centimetres a day. That is not a figure of speech — it is the production rate, and it is why the price is really a rate per hour of loom time rather than a price per metre. Any quotation that assumes otherwise has assumed a different loom.
What the price is actually made of
| Line | What sets it | Can it be reduced |
|---|---|---|
| Yarn | Grade of silk, whether twisted, whether dyed before weaving | Yes — by dropping a grade, which you will see in the hand |
| Setup | The pattern programme. A new design means a new setup, once | No — it is a fixed cost, and it is the reason for minimums |
| Weaving | Width × picks per centimetre × centimetres per day | No — reducing density is reducing the cloth |
| Finishing | Washing, setting, trimming, fringing | Partly |
| Price | Mostly loom hours, not material |
The single most useful thing to know: on handwoven silk, labour dominates material. That is the opposite of commodity textile, and it is why small orders are not proportionally cheap.
Four traditions, and what each one punishes
Brocade and kesi tapestry
Nanjing, Suzhou, Chengdu. Kesi is woven with discontinuous wefts — the colour stops and starts, so every colour boundary is a small join. More colours means more joins, and the price climbs faster than the colour count suggests.
Embroidery
Suzhou, Hunan, Sichuan, Guangdong. Hand and machine embroidery are almost indistinguishable from the front at any size you would print. The back settles it, and so does the way the light moves across the thread.
Indigo resist dye
Nantong and the surrounding towns. A paste resist is printed or applied by hand, the cloth is dipped in indigo, and the paste is scraped away. Hand-cut and machine-printed versions look alike until you look at the edge of a motif.
Velvet flowers
Nanjing and Yangzhou. Made from silk wrapped around wire, then shaped. Real silk has a particular spring and a soft sheen; synthetic imitations look brighter in a photograph and go limp in a dry room.
What goes wrong
The reorder does not match. Two dye baths, two colours. If a programme will need replenishment, the conversation about reserving yarn has to happen before the first order is placed — afterwards there is nothing to reserve.
The width was never discussed. A supplier quotes a finished dimension, and the cutting loss lands on you. Ask for the loom width and do the arithmetic on your own cut plan before agreeing anything.
Fibre content is assumed. “Silk” on a quotation is a word, not a test. On anything above a sample quantity, a fibre composition test is cheap relative to the goods.
Nothing was pre-shrunk. A piece that was never washed will shrink on its first wash, and no amount of care afterwards brings the dimension back.
Ask for two numbers before you ask for a price: the loom width in centimetres, and the dye lot reference. Those two answers tell you whether the order can be repeated, and what you are actually paying for in the cutting room.
Sourcing textile or embroidery?
Send the finished dimension, the quantity and whether you will need a reorder. The last one changes the answer more than the first two.
Send a sourcing request