Silk has been used for knitting for a very long time. The first known knitted garment made of silk was a pair of stockings. Due to its price and challenging care requirements, it is not often used for everyday wear. With the reintroduction of natural, sustainable materials, the properties of silk and its blends are once again being explored for various purposes, including clothing and decorative applications, as well as for designing fabrics and knitwear with a specific function, such as sportswear. Due to its price and properties, silk is often used in various blends with natural and synthetic fibres, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. In the diploma thesis, the properties of fabrics made from different silk blends (silk/wool, lyocell/silk, cotton/acrylic/silk, and cotton/silk) were analysed. In the silk/wool blend, the silk content was 70%, while in the other blends it was 30%. The fabrics were produced in four different knit structures: Single Jersey, Single Piqué, Single Fang, and Honeycomb. The knitted fabrics were washed five times and changes in dimensional stability, horizontal and vertical density, thickness and mass per square metre were determined. Permeability properties such as air permeability, thermal conductivity, and absorption, as well as tensile strength and pilling resistance, were analysed. The influence of the material composition and the knitted structure on the final properties was determined. It was found that the composition of the raw material has a greater influence on the final properties than the structure of the knitted fabric. Washing causes the knit to shrink, especially after the first wash, which also affects dimensional stability and final properties. The greatest changes in dimensional stability were observed in silk/wool blend fabrics, which also affected other properties such as air permeability and thermal conductivity. Dimensional stability was least affected in cotton/acrylic/silk blends. Fabrics made from lyocell/silk blends were the most absorbent.
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