Terry towels – fabrics that can absorb large amounts of water

Caring for your Towels

• Wash towels at between 40-60°C
• Wash with similar colours or use a colour catcher
• Tumble dry towels to keep them soft and fluffy
• Use fabric conditioners sparingly and not in every wash as they decrease absorbency
• Wash separately from garments with zips or trims to avoid snagging
• Shake towels before washing –this opens up the fibres slightly to allow the detergent to sink inside.

Key points to focus during production planning

1. Customers support. Fully understanding customers requirements and their expectations.
2. Process control providing products utilizing proven designs and manufacturing process.
3. Top employees developing a highly trained workforce that is skilled, motivated, understandable, empowered and fully accountable.
4. Robust supply chain: establishing strong relationships with world-class suppliers
5. continuous improvement: continually improve the efficiency of the business processes and operational activities and operations, quality management systems.

Calculations for terry towels to find the weight of ground warp, pile warp and weft yarn

Assumptions

• Number of Ground Warp Ends = 694
• Ground Warp Count = 25 tex x 2
• Warp Crimp = 8%
• Weft Yarn count = 34 tex
• Number of Pile Warp Ends = 576
• Length of pile part = 102 cm
• Pile Ratio (for pile height)= 52:10 (52 cm of pile warp for 10 cm of cloth)
• Pile Yarn count = 30 tex x 2
• Length of plain part = 4 cm
• Picks per cm = 20
• Reed Width = 58.4 cm
• Grey Length ( Pile and Plain Part) = 106 cm
• Fringe Length = 2 cm

Calculation-1

The weight of Ground Warp = Weight of ground warp in grey cloth + weight of ground warp in the fringe.

Weight of ground warp in grey cloth = (length of grey cloth x warp crimp factor x no of ground warp threads x warp yarn count in tex )/ (100 x 1000)
= (106 x 1.08 x 694 x 25 x 2)/(100 x 1000)
= 397.25 gms

Weight of Ground Warp in Fringe (here the warp crimp is not involved) = (Fringe length x no of ground warp x yarn count in tex)/ (100x 1000)
= (2 x 694 x 25 x 2)/ (100 x 1000) = 0.69 gms

So Ground Warp Weight = 397.25 +.69 = 397.94 grams.

Calculation-2 (continued from terry towel calculation-1)

The weight of Pile Warp = weight of pile warp in pile part + that in plain part + that infringe

a. Weight of pile warp in pile part ( Pile ratio: 52:10)
=( Length of pile part x number of pile threads x pile length x yarn count in tex) / (100 x 1000)
= (102 x 576 x 52 x 30 x 2)/(100 x 1000)
= 183.31 g

b. Weight of Pile warp in Plain Part
=( Length of plain fabric x number of pile threads x crimp factor x yarn count)/ (100 x 1000)
= (4 x 576 x 1.08 x 30 x 2)/(100 x 1000)
= 1.49 g

c. Weight of Pile warp in fringe ( No crimp , no loop )
= (fringe length x number of pile threads x yarn count)/(100 x 1000)
= (2 x 576 x 30 x 2)/(100 x 1000)
= 0.69 g
Weight of pile warp = 183.31+ 1.49 + 0.69 = 185.49

How to Determine the Weight of Weft in Terry Towel

The weight of Weft Yarn
= (Total no of weft threads x reed width x yarn count)/(100 x 1000)
(Reed width is equal to the length of one weft yarn)
= (106 x 20 x 58.4 x 34)/(100 x 1000)
= 42.09 g

What is GSM?

GSM is the short form for grams per square meter. All fabrics including towels have a measurement in weight, and the standard measurement is measured in grams per square meters. This number refers to the density of the towel. High-quality Turkish cotton towels are generally heavier and are more absorbent.

Towels can vary anywhere between 300 GSM and 900 GSM. The lower the number, the lighter and thinner the towel. For instance:

300-400 GSM – In this weight category the towels are lighter and thinner. Depending on its use, a lower GSM for the towels are manufactured for gym towel or a kitchen towel. A lightweight, shared beach towel might be around 350 GSM. Medium weight is 400-600 GSM. This weight is great for beach towels, bath towels, guest towels and so forth. Each consecutive gram weight –400, 500, 600– gets a little heavier, and a little more absorbent.

600-900 GSM – This is a premium, luxury weight. The towel will be denser, heavier, more absorbent. It will probably take a little longer to dry.

Parts of a Conventional Terry

A woven towel consists of five parts. These are the pile area, fringes, beginning and end part, selvedge, border. Every towel does not have to contain all of these parts. The pile area is considered the towelling part of the towel. Fringes are tied or an untied tasselled part of ground warps and pile warps which are left unwoven at the beginning and the end edges of the towel. The beginning and end sections are the tightly woven areas of a towel which come before or after the pile fabric part and prevent this pile area from unravelling. They are woven without pile loops, in a flat weave construction. The selvedge contains a fewer number of warp ends than the pile area, for example, 90 compared to 4000 total warp ends, woven without pile as a flat weave and has the purpose to reinforce the towel sides