Primer on Fabric for Sewing - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. The first thing that you are going to find after you have purchased your pattern is that on the back of it, there is going to be a list of different fabrics that they feel are appropriate, and until you get used to which fabrics work best, and what their names are and what their fibre composition is, what you want to do is what I call a 'hand test'. And what you do when you do a hand test is go into the fabric store and ask to see two or three of the fabrics that they list on the back of the pattern. Once the woman at the fabrics store has shown those to you, then what you do is take the ones they have shown to you and, over an open hand, you want to kind of feel how it moves. Your hand is open because you want to feel the folds, how the folds come down, whether the fabrics feels liquid or whether it feels rigid, how much it gives, how much it stretches, and then once you have felt that, just maintain a sense memory of that and shop by hand for your fabric. That is gonna work out the best for you because you will end up with something maybe outside the range of what they recommend, but still appropriate.