Where can I get linen with weave and thickness suitable for patches?

[Jerry V Lape]

I keep wanting to try linen patching but the fabric stores don't seem to carry anything with thickness and weave suitable for patches.  Several years ago someone was talking about an on line supplier - anyone have a source?

[SCLoyalist]

I found some linen that I used for patches at the JoAnn Fabrics shop.   Online, try Joanns.com and fabric.com.    The trouble with online ordering is that without seeing the stuff in person it's hard to judge the actual thickness, but the product description will tell you whether the product is 100 percent linen, or a linen / cotton mix,  or a linen/synthetic mix and whether they recommend it for handkerchiefs, pants, drapes, or whatever.      Some places will allow you to order a small sample swatch for $.75 or $1, so you could get some samples at a nominal cost without investing bigger bucks on a piece of material you can't use.   I've bought pillow ticking from onlinefabricstore.com, but I don't know if they carry linen usable for patching.  Good luck.   SCL

[TMerkley]

I got mine after my wife decided we needed new linen sheets.  600 count thread.  It does extremely well for patching. 

[zimmerstutzen]

Utrecht art supplies sells linen aartists canvas

[Kermit]

Most on-line art supply folks will snip samples to send you. You just need to ask. They want to make sales, you know.

[Hungry Horse]

 Any high end restaurant, will work. Buy a good meal, and snag the napkin, or cut the corner off the tablecloth. Only kidding. But if you know someone in the restaurant industry, you might ask about damaged linen. They often get stains that don't come out, and burns from candles. A tablecloth will make a lot of .50 cal. patches.

                      Hungry Horse

[LH]

http://www.najecki.com/repro/Linen.html

free swatches with sase,  twill weave and advertised thicknesses for cloths. 

[2lookindown]

My local Wall-Mart carries pillow ticking and several other fabrics and you can take your mics. in and measure it also.... One of my guns take the 15 thousands pillow tick and the other one uses a 20 thousands denim... Plenty to choose from...

[Jerry V Lape]

I have all the denim available in various thickness.  Reason I asked the question is that I wanted to test some real flax linen patching and see if there is a perceptible difference.  Sent off to Najecki for samples per earlier recommendation so thanks to everyone for the help. 

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

Check out your local GOODWILL thrift store. Men's 100 % cotton chino pants, often nearly new cost $3 bucks. Cotton chino like this usually runs about .014-.018, women's usually 2 thousandths less, and chino fabric is very tightly woven and makes excellent patching. Cheap price to pay for hundreds of patches and a little work cutting them out.  The pockets are great tough cotton pocket drill fabric, but a bit thinner and in smaller but still useful pieces perhaps where thinner patching is needed. You can check out jeans too, just read the fabric content labels and examine for wear.    Lon

[tuffy]

Check this one out.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-FLAX-LINEN-FABRIC-WHITE-60-WIDE-/271037753612


    CW

[Hungry Horse]

 Linen is much stronger than cotton. It also is more rot resistant. Old cotton ticking, or pocket drill, will become weak with age, and cause patch failure. That is why the old timers highly valued linen as patch material. Its additional strength also allowed a hotter charge, without the patch failure seen in cotton patching. many grease type patch lubricants that are left on the patching in patch boxes will rot cotton quite quickly. Linen doesn't seem to suffer from this problem nearly as much.


                              Hungry Horse