child's dress

This short child's dress dates from around 1880. It is made from beige sateen heavily embroidered with crewel wool, with very cheap lace edging on the collar. Like satin, sateen is defined by the weave used to create a fabric rather than the material it comes from, with the difference being that sateen is made using short-staple yarns such as cotton, whereas satin is woven from filament fibres like silk or nylon. Both fabrics have a soft feel, smooth surface and glossy sheen due to the structure of the weave, in which four or more weft yarns are floated over a warp yarn or vice versa.