How to Shop for New Fabric Blends  by Jamie Ueda  As you may
have already noticed, there's a lot more clothing made of blends
of fibers in stores this season. Mixed fiber garments and home
goods are nothing new but now items that used to be made
primarily of 100% cotton, like tees and towels, will be made of
cotton mixed with polyester, spandex, or rayon. This trend is
most likely due to the high price of cotton, but does help
manufacturers incorporate desirable performance properties like
stain and shrink resistance into clothing. While polyester,
spandex, and rayon are quite familiar, I've been seeing a lot of
less well known rayons like Lyocell, Tencel, and Modal on
clothing labels. To help you know what you're buying, here's
what you should know about these fabrics.  Let's start with
Rayon. It's a product of the cellulose of wood pulp or cotton,
which is processed into a solution and extruded into a fiber. It
has a very silky feel but one drawback is that it generally
requires dry cleaning. Lyocell is a t