Starsteam Textile Notes
Fabric notes

Four articles

Updated 2 August 2026

Textiles at home, looked after on purpose

Most fabric in a house fails from small, repeated mistakes: a vacuum head with a beater bar on a wool seat, a hot cloth pressed into a wine spill, a rug left in one orientation for eight years. Starsteam publishes short, tested notes on the fabrics people live with.

Every article below sticks to what the fibre does under real conditions, with the numbers that matter: water temperature in Celsius, drying times in minutes, fabric weight in grams per square metre. No product names, no shopping lists.

Close view of a plain weave cloth with oat coloured warp threads crossing sage green weft threads
Plain weave at close range: one warp thread over, one under, repeated. The structure decides how a cloth soils and how a cloth cleans.

Upholstery

28 July 2026

Wool upholstery, and the three things it actually asks for

Wool seat covers shed dry soil on their own, pill for the first six months, and felt permanently if a cleaner arrives with hot water. Vacuum frequency, pill removal, safe moisture levels, and the point where a professional is the cheaper option.

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Linen

21 July 2026

A working method for fresh spills on pale linen

Flax fibre is stronger wet than dry, which is why cold water in the first minute solves most spills. The blotting sequence, the five solvents worth keeping in a cupboard, and the reason rubbing turns a small stain into a permanent pale patch.

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Rugs

9 July 2026

Pile direction, shading, and dents from furniture legs

Every wool rug has a lay to the pile, and the lay decides which half of the rug looks darker from the sofa. How to read pile direction with a palm, when shading is a fault and when shading is normal, and how to raise a crushed patch with a single ice cube.

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Curtains

2 July 2026

Curtain fabric weight in grams per square metre

A 70 gsm voile and a 420 gsm wool blend hang in completely different shapes from the same track. What the gsm figure predicts about drape, how much light each weight band stops, and which of the four common linings to specify.

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