I dedicated one weekly fabric post to the basic weaves, including satin. Today, satin the fabric.

One mistake that is sometimes made is calling satin ‘silk.’ It certainly could be made of silk, and it has a silky feel, but all satin is not silk. (By the way, silk is relatively easy to distinguish in a burn test. There’s a burn test how-to in the VFG Fabric Resource.)

Another small issue with satin is the spelling: Satan does not get its spelling corrected, and pretty vintage ‘satan’ dresses show up regularly on eBay and Etsy!

Satin

Satin is the name of one of the basic weaves, and also a fabric made in this weave. Owing to its silk or manufactured filament yarns and its uninterrupted warp yarn face, satin is very lustrous. Satin originated in China, and takes its name from Zaytoun, now Guangzhou, in southern China.