PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
The cloth behind these terms
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
BUYING SILK · 100% MULBERRY SILK · FROM A CHINESE MILL
Cut lengths, not roll minimums — and the three things to know before you order by the metre.
Buying silk by the yard should be simple and usually is not, because most mills sell by the roll and treat cut lengths as a favour. We cut from one metre in any stock colour, which makes by-the-yard buying a normal transaction rather than an exception.
A yard and a metre are not the same thing — a yard is 91.44 cm — and the width decides how far a length goes. We quote and cut in metres; if you are working from a pattern in yards, order about 10% more by length.
Enough to test, enough to make something small, and no minimum worth arguing about.
The same garment takes meaningfully less cloth at 140 cm than at 114 cm. Check which width the price refers to before comparing.
A one-metre cut is the same cloth as a hundred-metre order, so what you sample is what you would be buying.
| You need | Order this | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 yard | 0.95 m — order 1 m | Round up to the metre |
| 2 yards | 1.85 m — order 2 m | Round up |
| 3 yards | 2.75 m — order 3 m | Round up |
| A blouse at 114 cm | ≈ 2.0 m | More for a gathered body |
| A straight dress at 140 cm | ≈ 2.2 m | Knee length, no train |
| A bias slip dress at 140 cm | ≈ 2.6 m | Bias layouts waste more |
Work out consumption before you order, not after. A garment that takes 2.0 m at 140 cm can take 2.8 m at 114 cm, so a price comparison between two suppliers quoting different widths is meaningless until you convert both to the same width. Comparing price per square metre rather than per linear metre removes the confusion.
Order a margin. Between shrinkage, a cutting mistake and a pattern repeat you did not allow for, the most common outcome of ordering the exact calculated length is a second order at a worse freight rate. Ten per cent is usually enough; fifteen if the print has a large repeat.
These search phrases all land here because they mean the same thing:
If you were looking for a different commercial question, the wholesale page covers programmes and the ready-stock page covers what is on the shelf right now.
Yes. Stock colours are cut from one metre, which is a little over a yard. We cut and quote in metres, so if your pattern is in yards, order roughly 10% more by length to be safe.
One metre. There is no cut-length surcharge and no requirement to buy a whole roll.
Cutting from stock is priced per metre regardless of length. Custom dyeing is priced per dye lot, so shorter dyed runs cost more per metre — that is a dyeing cost, not a cutting one.
114 cm and 140 cm, depending on the family, with the usable width excluding the selvedge. Width is stated on the quotation, and it matters: a marker drawn for 140 cm will not fit on 114 cm.
It depends entirely on the garment. One metre is a sampling length — enough to judge the cloth and to make something small. For a garment, work from the marker or the planning table on the family page.
PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
Tell us the quantity and the colour and we will quote it with a confirmed dispatch date.
