This page is for anyone at a mill, a factory or a brand who reads a blend ratio on a spec, an order note or a fabric label and has to work out what it actually means. It teaches a reading skill: how a notation like "98/2 cotton-elastane" states two facts at once, which fibre is which, and how much of each, and how changing one of those numbers changes the way the finished fabric behaves. Lesson 5.1 already taught why a blend exists at all: because no single fibre supplies every property a product needs. This lesson takes that idea further and shows that the exact ratio, not just the fact that a blend exists, is itself a performance lever. A merchandiser who reads "98/2" the wrong way round, or who cannot say what happens when a customer asks for "more stretch," can turn a simple request into the wrong fabric, ordered in the wrong proportions, at the wrong cost. Without this skill, a mill risks knitting or weaving a fabric nobody actually asked for.
You need: the idea that a fibre blend exists to add a specific property, from lesson 5.1. If you have not read lesson 5.1, the key terms below give you enough to continue.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: the specific blend ratios the industry commonly uses and the trade-off each one makes (lesson 5.3), and how to decide which blend a new product brief actually needs (lesson 5.4).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Blend ratio | The percentage of each fibre by weight in a blended yarn or fabric, main fibre named first, for example Order B's 98/2 cotton-elastane. |
| Minority fibre | The smaller-percentage fibre in a blend, added for a specific property the main fibre alone does not provide. |
| Cotton-elastane blend | A mostly-cotton fabric with a small elastane percentage, for example 98/2, such as Order B's denim. |
| Elastane | Synthetic fibre that stretches several times its length and recovers its shape; blended at a small percentage, never alone. |
| Stretch recovery | How well a stretch fabric returns to shape, the property that matters over a garment's lifetime. |
The rule is stated once and applies to every order: a blend ratio like "98/2" states the percentage of each fibre by weight, with the main fibre named first; Order B's denim, 98/2 cotton-elastane, means 98% cotton and 2% elastane. Reading the ratio the right way round matters. "98/2" and "2/98" describe two completely different fabrics, one almost entirely cotton and one almost entirely elastane, even though both use the same two words. As the minority fibre's percentage rises, its property becomes more dominant in the finished fabric: more elastane means more stretch, but also a higher cost and a different hand-feel. The ratio is therefore not a fixed label attached to a fabric name. It is a dial a mill or a buyer can turn, and turning it changes what the fabric does and what it costs.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Order-first convention | The first number or fibre named is normally the majority fibre; "98/2 cotton-elastane" means cotton is 98%, elastane 2%. Conventions can occasionally differ between suppliers, so always confirm which fibre is named first. | Assuming the order without checking is the single most common way to misread a blend ratio, on any order, in any market. |
| Small percentage, large effect (elastane) | Even 2% elastane meaningfully changes a fabric's stretch behaviour, because elastane's stretch property is very strong relative to its small weight share. | A mill reading "add 2% elastane" should expect a real, noticeable change in stretch, not a negligible one, despite the small number. |
| Larger percentage shifts (cotton-polyester) | A cotton-polyester blend commonly ranges more widely, for example 65/35 or 50/50, and the effect on hand-feel and durability shifts more gradually and proportionally than elastane's outsized small-percentage effect. | A reader should not expect every blend family to behave like elastane; a cotton-polyester ratio needs a bigger percentage change to produce a similarly noticeable shift. |
| Export MTO and domestic MTS both use ratios the same way | An export buyer working Make to Order specifies a ratio in the tech pack the same way a domestic Make to Stock brand like Cedar & Co. specifies one in an order note. | The order's market or business model never changes how a blend ratio is read; the notation and the direction-of-change logic are identical everywhere. |
| Reading without predicting is incomplete | Naming the ratio correctly, this lesson's first step, is not the same skill as predicting how a ratio change shifts performance, this lesson's second step. | A reader who can only name the ratio, but cannot say which way a requested change moves it, cannot turn a plain-language request into the correct new fabric. |
Reading a blend ratio correctly is the foundation. Predicting which way a change in that ratio moves the fabric's performance is the skill that turns a plain-language request into a usable specification.
The case we followCedar & Co., the cast's domestic Make to Stock brand with its own 12 shops, is planning a new closer-fitting stock style built on the same denim family as Order B, the five-pocket jeans in 12 oz denim with 2% elastane. Cedar & Co. asks Rowad Knits, its knitting mill, to confirm what would happen to the fabric's stretch if Order B's own usual 98/2 cotton-elastane ratio were changed to 96/4 for this new style. This is a domestic, Make to Stock decision, made from Cedar & Co.'s own forecast rather than a confirmed export order, and it uses Order B's already-fixed ratio as its reference point rather than inventing a new fabric from nothing.
This lesson reuses Order B's fixed denim 98/2 ratio directly and frames the worked question qualitatively rather than as a new calculation. Moving from 98/2 to 96/4 doubles the elastane share, from 2% to 4%. Doubling the minority fibre's share meaningfully increases stretch and recovery, at a correspondingly higher cost and a change in hand-feel. This is a directional prediction, not an exact-percentage one, because exact stretch-per-elastane-percentage figures are not part of this academy's fixed facts.
A common mistake is misreading which number belongs to which fibre, treating "98/2" as if the first number were the minority fibre's share. A factory or mill that misreads the ratio this way could source or blend the wrong proportions entirely, producing a fabric with far too much or far too little of the added-property fibre. An almost-all-elastane fabric, produced by reading "98/2" backwards, is not a stretchier version of the intended denim; it is an unusable fabric that has to be scrapped or reworked, at the cost of the fibre, the mill's machine time and the schedule slot it occupied.
A blend ratio like "98/2" is two numbers next to two fibre names. The fibre named first normally gets the bigger number, so "98/2 cotton-elastane" means 98% cotton and 2% elastane, not the other way round. Getting the order backwards turns a mostly-cotton fabric into a mostly-elastane one, two completely different fabrics. The smaller number belongs to the fibre added for one specific reason, usually stretch when the fibre is elastane. When that smaller number goes up, the property it brings gets stronger, but the fabric also costs more and feels different. So if someone asks for "more stretch" on a denim that is usually 98% cotton and 2% elastane, and says to raise the elastane to 4%, the new ratio is 96% cotton and 4% elastane, because the two numbers always add up to 100%. Reading which number goes with which fibre, then reasoning about which way a change moves the fabric, is the whole skill.
Rowad Knits is the cast's knitting mill. Cedar & Co. is the cast's domestic Make to Stock brand, buying from Delta Garments on open account and running its own 12 shops. For a new, closer-fitting stock style built on the same denim family as Order B, Cedar & Co. sends Rowad Knits an order note asking for more stretch on the usual blend.
The document Rowad Knits reads is the order note's one line:
What should the new blend ratio be? Decide before you open the decision.
96/4 cotton-elastane. "Go to 4% on the usual blend" means raising the elastane share from Order B's usual denim ratio of 2% to 4%.
Because a blend ratio's two percentages always add to 100%, raising elastane to 4% means the cotton share adjusts down to 96% to keep the total correct. The new ratio is 96% cotton, 4% elastane, meaningfully more stretch than the usual 98/2, at a correspondingly higher cost.
Rowad Knits should confirm this new ratio with Cedar & Co. in writing before sourcing or blending anything, stating both numbers and both fibres, so a plain-language request never gets translated into fibre proportions by guesswork.
This lesson's cost is framed qualitatively, since no fixed dollar figure attaches to a domestic stock style's blend-reading error in the master figures. Misreading which fibre a percentage refers to, or misreading which direction "more stretch" moves the ratio, risks producing a fabric with the wrong stretch level for the closer fit: too little stretch if the ratio is read or requested wrongly in one direction, or unnecessarily costly and different in hand-feel if it is overshot in the other. Either outcome means reworking the blend, wasting the fibre and mill time already committed, and delaying the new style right when Cedar & Co. wants it on its shelves. The two-step read in this lesson, confirm which fibre is which, then reason about direction, is designed to prevent exactly this mismatch before any fibre is sourced or blended.
The blend selector, this course's own workbook, uses Order A (100% cotton) and Order B's denim (98/2 cotton-elastane) as its two fixed reference points on the Decide sheet. This lesson's skill, reading a ratio correctly and predicting the direction a change moves it, comes before touching that sheet: a wrong reading of "98/2" would carry straight into a wrong recommendation. [Download the blend selector](templates/T02-C05-blend-selector.xlsx).
| Step | What you read or confirm | Where it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Confirm order | Which fibre is named first, which number is which | Before filling in any question on the Decide sheet |
| Confirm total | The two percentages add to 100% | Whenever a new ratio is proposed |
| Confirm direction | Which way a requested change moves the ratio | Before recommending a new blend to a customer |
1. In "98/2 cotton-elastane," which fibre is the 98%?
2. If a blend ratio's minority fibre percentage increases, what generally happens to that fibre's property in the fabric?
3. A cotton-polyester blend at 65/35 moves to 50/50 polyester, a larger shift than Order B's denim moving from 98/2 to 96/4. Which statement is correct?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blend ratio | نسبة المزيج | Ratio de mélange | Karışım oranı | The percentage of each fibre by weight in a blended yarn or fabric, main fibre named first, for example Order B's denim, 98/2 cotton-elastane. |
| Minority fibre | الليف الأقلي | Fibre minoritaire | Azınlık elyafı | The smaller-percentage fibre in a blend, added for a specific property the main fibre alone does not provide. |
| Cotton-elastane blend | مزيج القطن والإيلاستان | Mélange coton-élasthanne | Pamuk-elastan karışımı | A mostly-cotton fabric with a small elastane percentage, for example 98/2, such as Order B's denim. |
| Elastane | الإيلاستان | Élasthanne | Elastan | Synthetic fibre that stretches several times its length and recovers its shape; blended at a small percentage, never alone. |
| Stretch recovery | استرجاع الشكل بعد التمدد | Récupération de l'élasticité | Esneklik geri dönüşü | How well a stretch fabric returns to shape, the property that matters over a garment's lifetime. |
You now know how to read a blend ratio and predict which way a change in it shifts a fabric's performance. The next lesson widens the view to the common blend ratios the industry actually uses, and the trade-off each one makes between the property it adds and what it costs. Back to the course map