Twill & Canvas
Twill & Canvas Fabric Guide
Nine heavyweight cotton qualities from 160 to 400 gsm — for trousers, jackets, bags and upholstery that have to hold their shape.
Print quality
What reactive printing does to the colour
The dye bonds with the cotton fibre instead of sitting on top of it as a film. That is where the depth comes from — and why the printed area stays as soft as the unprinted area.
Before you order
See it on real fabric first
You do not have to commit to a full run to find out how a fabric feels or how your colours come out.
Every quality we print, unprinted, on one card set. The quickest way to judge weight, handle and opacity.
Order the swatch pack — €9.00Cotton and viscose qualities go through a different print process, so the smallest run of your design is 5 metres — you can order that straight from the fabric page. The swatch pack covers the fabric itself.
Order 5 m with your designThe range
The 9 qualities we print in this family
When the cloth has to carry something
Twill and canvas are the heavy end of the woven cottons. You reach for them when the piece has to hold its own shape or take some punishment — trousers, jackets, bags, seat covers, a blind that must hang flat.
Twill: the diagonal
Twill is woven so the crossings step sideways row by row, which produces the diagonal line you can see if you look closely at a pair of chinos. That structure does three useful things: it makes the cloth more flexible than a plain weave of the same weight, it hides dirt and wear better, and it drapes rather than boards.
Ours run from 230 gsm, which is a comfortable trouser weight, up to 400 gsm, which is firmly outerwear and upholstery. There is a stretch twill at 255 gsm with a little elastane if you want a fitted trouser that still lets you sit down.
Canvas: the flat, dense one
Canvas is a plain weave taken to its logical end — thick yarn, packed tightly, no diagonal. It is stiffer than twill at the same weight and it holds a crease where twill would recover. That stiffness is exactly what a tote bag or a box cushion wants.
We print canvas from 160 gsm, light enough for tea towels and craft work, up to 300 gsm for bags and upholstery. The heavier the canvas, the more the weave texture shows through the print — fine detail softens a little, while bold shapes and large-scale artwork look excellent.
Choosing between them
- Should it drape? Twill.
- Should it stand up? Canvas.
- Will it be sat on, carried, or scuffed? Go heavier than feels necessary — 290 gsm and up.
- Is the artwork fine and detailed? Stay under 250 gsm, or move to a sateen.
Printing and practicalities
Reactive printing again, so the colour bonds into the cotton and survives washing. Production two to three weeks. Most of the twills and the heavier canvas run 160 cm wide rather than 150, which matters when you are laying out a repeat or cutting a bag panel.
- Minimum 5 m per design.
- Tolerance: ±10% over 50 m per design, ±5 m under.
- Needle up. A 90/14 or 100/16 for the heavy canvas, and a walking foot if you have one.
Keep reading
The other fabric guides
Before you commit
Feel it first
A swatch pack lets you judge the hand and the weight yourself. A €5.00 test print goes further — it puts your own design on the quality you picked, printed on the same machine as a full order.
