10 Popular Types of Wool Upholstery Fabric in 2023

Upholstered furniture has numerous variations regarding the extent of use and where it is used. The only thing that matters is durability, it has to be the top feature for upholstery fabric.

For example, the sofas and chairs, undergo a minimal amount of wear, when used in bedrooms or formal spaces whereas, furniture in a family living room is more subjected to wear. It should be enfolded with tough, sturdy, and tightly woven fabric to guard against stains and damage.

Thinking about all these necessary features might make it all very complex. Undoubtedly it is, therefore, today, we will be talking about the wool fabric for upholstery. Many people have not yet discovered it as a fabric for upholstery, so choosing the right option can be a nightmare for them.

The reason why wool is regarded as the best option lies in its composition. Its thread count is the real game changer for the buyer, the thread count is a term that depicts the number of threads per square inch. The more the thread count, the more will be tightness in the fabric. Thus, it is pretty evident that

Wool Upholstery Fabric With Pictures

I will not give you the general info, like wool is a substantial fabric used in contemporary furniture upholstery, instead, we would go a bit deeper.

Talking about its uses, wool is often used with a whisk of synthetic fiber to make it easier to clean and to avoid the chance of blending and hardening.  So it is pretty evident that the wool fabric used for upholstery is naturally easier to maintain.

Anyone worried about their kids, or those who cannot sleep on a hot sofa, should also not worry, as wool is breathable, non-absorbent, and mildew repellent.

Then it will retain its shape for years. If you are someone thinking of a long-term furniture investment, then wool might be the best option for you. Learn how to choose the best wool fabric.

3 Key Features of Wool Upholstery

The reason why we have several fabrics for upholstery is their salient features. Just like cotton wool also has distinct qualities, keeping reading to explore.

• Hard-wearing:

Wool is familiar for its strength and resilience. It has high elasticity. With about 15000 times bent, it has the ability to reshape itself.

• Fire resistant:

Wool contains a high amount of nitrogen and water in it. These ingredients of wool make it hard to ignite. The use of wool in upholstery does not need to be FR-treated.

• Environment friendly:

Compared to the production of synthetic fibers, processing wool requires substantially less energy. Wool production has a minimal carbon impact on the earth and contributes to the rehabilitation of a much healthier environment because it emits less carbon dioxide.

Types of Wool Upholstery Fabric for Sofa

How would you know, which wool fabric type is the best for upholstery?

Are you going to hire an expert? Maybe a few of you can, but what about others?

After all, we all want to create a customized sweet home for ourselves, so it would be an injustice to not have the basic knowledge about upholstery fabric types. Worry not we are here with the ten best wool fabric types for upholstery.

Felt Fabric

Felt fabric, as the name implies is something we all would love to touch and feel. It is a unique type of wool fabric, created for centuries by spinning the wool thread.

It is said to be ideal for mid-century furniture restoration. The best thing today about felt fabric is its availability in numerous designs. Felt fabric’s geometric designs can add a modern twist to your sofas or other furniture designs, and it offers outstanding texture and durability.

If you want furniture that can last for a lifetime, choose wool for the upholstery fabric. Wool and felt upholstery fabric have modernized over the decades and yielded better than any other material. Textile made of wool or felt is entirely natural, sustainable, recyclable, and biodegradable.

Another unique feature is the unwoven wool. Because they don’t weave it to prepare this fabric, therefore, there is very little chance of damage. Unlike regular wool fabric, it will not come apart or get loose.

I would suggest it is a safe choice for the kids’ or older people’s room. As it is fire retardant so there is a minimal chance that your kid would get fire in their room.

If you own a different type of sofa, which was created to give a unique look to your room, then it would be a fine option to choose felt fabric, as it can be easily designed in any shape.

Natural Wool Upholstery Fabric

Wool from sheep is the very first naturally produced fiber. Have you ever seen a sheep? Of course, you have. You can imagine the softness of its touch. Why undergo such experience in fields when you can entertain yourself with it in the place you are sitting right now? It is a renewable source of wool.

Sheep wool fabric is well known for controlling body temperature. Wool naturally serves as an insulator and combined with its capacity to absorb away moisture. It makes for a fabric that keeps the body warm even when it’s raining. In the summer, wool’s coil-like form absorbs extra heat and moisture from your skin, enabling the user to stay cooler. You can say it is an all season useable upholstery material.

It can be further categorized into different types:

• Merino wool: It is created from the fleece of Merino sheep and is immensely popular because it is far less itchy than all other available sheep wool fabrics.
• Cashmere wool: The Tibetan Wild (Cashmere) goat’s fiber was used to make it. Although the fabric itself is pretty light, the clothing constructed from it is highly warm.
• Mohair wool: This is a fleece-based, soft, luxurious, fuzzy-textured wool fabric with knitted or woven cotton back. Apart from that, it is just as warm and soft as any other premium wool, such as merino or cashmere.

Depending upon your skin type, you may opt for any one of them. Your cat may forget her couch and use your sofa upholstered with any of the above-mentioned soft woolen fiber.

Lastly, all those people who don’t want to destroy the environment, anymore, can also choose it without feeling guilty. It is bio-degradable.

Wool Flannel Upholstery Fabric

Let me introduce the “flannel” before I unify it with wool. Flannel stands out as a material with a twill weave, straight and reverse, and a flat and hairy surface that is ideal for expressing a sense of comfort and warmth. This fabric is made using unique finishing procedures called fulling, gauging, and combing. “Fulling” compacts the cloth after felting while “gauging” insulates it thermally and “combing” makes the fibers parallel, transforming them into a ribbon.

Wool was once the raw material used in making flannel. Later on, their combined features are utilized by people when they think of it in upholstery.

Wool flannel is frequently used in upholstery to provide a surface for upholstered furniture that is incredibly attractive. The pinstriped flannel fibers can be identified by their evenly spaced vertical stripes and dark tone. Due to its improved softness, ability to wick away moisture, and general feeling of comfort, wool flannel sheets are frequently chosen by consumers in the winter.

Due to its warmth, it is inappropriate for a location with a four-season climate.  It can only be used in winter or somewhere in fall. If you reside in a colder atmosphere or in a 25 – 30 degree mild temperature zone, you must go for wool flannel for a unique experience.

Tweed Wool Upholstery Fabric

Dyed wool is woven tightly to create tweed. It is available in a range of weights, patterns, and colors. This means that there is no such thing as “typical” tweed because the fabric can be anything from simple and light to colorful and dense, covering everything in between.

It has different types depending upon weights, patterns, and colors:

• Striped Tweed: Tweed with vertical stripes in opposing colors is known as striped tweed. This produces remarkable parallel lines going strongly up the material.
• Over-check Tweed: It is a twill weave that has a sizable check in a contrasting color superimposed on top of it.
• Checked Tweed: Tweeds with small checks have both vertical and horizontal stripes. This weave frequently has a larger over-check in a contrasting color layered on top of it.
• Harris Tweed: The fabric known as Harris Tweed is manufactured from pure virgin wool that has been spun and dyed in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, where the islanders hand weave it at their houses.

Types of Wool Upholstery w.r.t Weight

Light-weight Wool Upholstery Fabric

Wool is aimed at giving you a sense of lightness and calmness for centuries. Initially, it was used only in clothing. The man added it into the luxury of his living as well from bedding and cushioning to new upholstery. Light weighted wool for upholstery contains a large amount of air trapped in it which gives you a sense of mother’s lap and father’s love.

2 Different types of lightweight wools are:

Alpaca wool: South American alpacas are native to the continent and have sparse hair. Alpacas are exceptionally lightweight and also fully insulated. Compared to sheep’s wool, it is both lighter and warmer. Alpaca is comparably soft to cashmere but noticeably tougher. Additionally, alpaca hair is naturally hypoallergenic, making it the perfect choice for people with sensitive skin.

Angora wool: Angora wool is the lightest and finest wool of natural fibers. It must not be confused with the Angora goat, from which mohair wool is made. It actually comes from Angora rabbits. Although the fibers are extraordinarily soft, they are also very delicate. Because of this, angora is frequently blended with other fibers to boost its toughness.

Heavy Wool Upholstery Fabric

Imagine you are in a TV lounge, wanting to spend your weekend watching a movie. You have snacks, 3D glasses, a peaceful atmosphere, and a nice movie about your favorite caste. After half an hour, the story is proceeding and interest is generated, you feel ach in your back. You are continuously changing your positions. At the climax, you are fed up and want to kick your sofa off. All the interest vanishes and watching a movie gives you back pain at the end.

To make a happy ending you must upholster your sofa with a heavier but smoother fabric. A Heavy wool upholstery fabric will hold you like a lap while its softness soothes you for a better experience. A heavy wool upholstery fabric is best in this scenario.  It is actually produced with layers of wool fabric, twisted against each other to give more smoothness and comfort to your upholstered sofas.

Before going further let me introduce the units in which the weight of the wool fabric is evaluated. GSM stands for Gram per square foot while oz means the weight per square yard. A heavy wool fabric starts from 350 + gsm onward.

Like light-weight wool upholstery fabric, heavy wool upholstery fabric is also of different types.

• Camel hair: This fabric is created with the Bactrian camel’s undercoat. The resulting dark or brown material is extremely soft and is used to produce blankets and upholstery fabric. The phrase is generally used to describe soft but heavy woolen textiles that don’t contain real camel hair. 
• Melton: Wool Melton is a felted medium to heavy weight fabric with a smooth nap that is slightly thick.

Frequency of use, the color theme of the room, and the wood to be upholstered are the key factors that should be kept in mind when going for a heavy wool upholstery fabric.

Types of Wool Upholstery by the Colors

Your color selection symbolizes your personality, priority, and taste. In our daily lives, colors are extremely important. The colors, you surround yourself with, have an impact on both you and the people around you in terms of perspective and feelings. Hence colors are the substantial elements when we decide about upholstery.

It gives me great joy to share with you some colored wool upholstery ideas narrated below:

Gray Wool Upholstery Fabric

Not a single color brings to mind when we talk about “gray”. There are about 250 shades of gray, which definitely broaden the selection of gray in upholstery.

Dark gray is a gorgeously heathered-wool fabric. When two or more different colored yarns are woven together, the result is called “heather.” In order to create a subtle shade, it is frequently used to blend various shades of gray or gray with another color.

You may also be used to add a warm throw blanket and pillows to any couch. The best designs with Gray wool fabric are the blocks and stripes. I will choose gray wool for an office, where we need to build an industrious atmosphere. Or if you live in a senior boy’s hostel, the gray upholstery will add seniority to your mind and in the mind of your visitors.

Red Wool Upholstery Fabric

Numerous cultural traditions associate red with a variety of concepts including life, health, vitality, energy, courage, love, and religious devotion. All of these require passion, and that is their common factor.

Red, in different shades and in varying fibers and weights is used in upholstery for your sofas and armchairs. The selection of fiber, weight, and shade all depends upon the scene in which they are going to be applied.

Galloway wool is among red-shaded upholstery fabrics. Wool, style, and luxury are all pure in Galloway. Made from the highest grade un-dyed, 100 percent wool yarn, this fiber is soft, fluffy, and has a luxurious feel.

Are you planning to open a coffee shop, a library, or a fast food chain? You must go for it. People of different emotions will visit you and shades of red will definitely pacify them all.

Final Words

Wool upholstery fabric for the sofa has noticeable benefits. Being made of natural materials, it is highly environmentally friendly and sustainable.

Additionally, one does not need to worry about fungi as it is immune to mildew, mold, and other allergens. It is indeed an easy pick for the health freaks.

Then if there are kids around, so again wool is a safe fabric. You do not need to worry about the fire bells ringing.

Lastly, you should not think of it as the perfect upholstery fabric, since everything has a shortcoming so does the wool upholstery fabric. Compared to most other natural and synthetic materials, wool is more expensive. There won’t be a lot of diversity available to meet a specific style and you can only dry clean it.