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Fibers and Fabrics: Their History
and Common Use: A Glossary of Terms
Animal or Protein Fibers
Cellulose Fibers
Fiber Preparation
Fiber Manipulation
Fabric Dyeing
Sources:
Wool:
insulating outer hairs that will be shorn or collected after molting for use by
humans to make fiber and fabric. Nowadays,
it refers mostly to the fibers collected from sheep.
Fleece:
an animal’s insulating
outer hairs that are clipped off in one piece or combed off.
Skirting: removing extraneous
vegetable matter, fibers stained by urine and feces, the short belly and neck
hairs, kemp fibers, or anything unfit for spinning.
Shearing: removing animal fleece in
one large piece.
Double-coated fleece:
consists of
longer, coarser guard hairs over the softer, shorter downy undercoat.
Guard Hairs:
the long,
water-repellent coarse outer hairs of a double-coated fleece.
Alpaca:
a member of the camel
family native to South America. Its
cousins include the llama,
guanaco, and vicuña.
The fibers are long but inelastic. There
are two kinds of alpaca fiber: “Huacayo” has low silvery luster and a fine
crimp, while “Suri” is bright lustrous and fine with little to no crimp.
The fleeces are usually shorn every two years. Natural colors range from white, to blue-gray, black, rose,
beige, cinnamon brown, and brown-black.
Angora:
a species of rabbit bred
for its soft downy undercoat. The
combed fibers are short, slippery, and make yarns with high heat retentive
properties. Natural colors range from off-white to blue-gray, to rust.
Camel:
fleece from the Asian or
Bactrian (two-humped) camel that is not shorn but collected as the animal molts.
It produces a lightweight, warm yarn but lacks the strength of wool.
Does not dye well.
Cashgora:
a crossbreed of Angora
and Mohair goats with a long fiber length than cashmere and finer fiber diameter
than mohair. It is slippery, very
heat retentive, and dues well.
Cashmere:
the winter over coat of
some goats distinguished by specific characteristics.
Any goat can produce Cashmere. To
be classified as cashmere, the fier must e crimped throughout its length, be no
more than 19 microns in diameter an a minimum of 1 ¼ inches in length.
“Cashmere” goats are those who produce cashmere fiber in consistent,
significant quantities.
Mohair:
is the fiber from Angora
goats. The hairs will grow 4” to
6” in six months and are usually shorn twice a year.
“Tight lock” or “fall kid” is the animal’s first clip, usually
at 6 or 7 months. “Spring kid”
is clipped at 12 months. “Yearling”
mohair is clipped at 18 months. “Adult” mohair is any fiber clipped after 18 months.
Fiber diameter and coarseness increase with the animal’s age.
“Kid mohair” is the finest and most expensive.
Mohair is lustrous and stronger than wool with a broad crimp. It has superior loft and halo, is resilient and will not
wrinkle or shrink. The Dictionary
of Needlework published in 1882, describes mohair cloth worn in the Middle
Ages, used b y the French for lace, the Dutch for Utrecht for velvets, and by
everyone for clothing.
Quiviut:
the collected downy
undercoat of the Arctic Muskox. Extremely
fine and highly insulating, Quiviut is the world’s most expensive fiber.
Silk:
the double-stranded extrusion
of the larval stage of the cultivated Bombyx mori moth or wild
caterpillars (tussah) that the caterpillar uses to construct its cocoon.
The silk comes out of the spinnerets in tiny figure eights that overlap
and form a dense fiber. A gummy
coating of sericin on the silk thread causes the cocoon to stick
together. The single thread
composing each cocoon is approximately 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) long.
Silk is inelastic, extremely strong, dyes well, and is the world’s
second strongest natural fiber after spider webbing.
Other Exotic Animal Fibers/Products:
Bighorn sheep, grizzly bear, deer sinew, mink, sable, chinchilla, cat, dog,
horse fetlocks, puma, beaver.
Wool:
in this case, the shorn outer
coat of any breed of sheep. While
all sheep brow woolly fleeces, not all wools are suitable for spinning into
fiber yarns; sheep raised for meat generally do not yield wool suitable for
fabric manufacture. There are three
main systems to classify wool: “blood” system, “count” system,” and
“micron” system.
The “blood” system was originally derived from fine Merino
wool and Rambouillet sheep. Their
wool was called “fine.” If a
sheep was one-half Rambouillet or Merino, and half another breed, the resulting
fibers were almost always coarser or thicker than the pureblood.
These wools were called “one-half blood.”
The numerical “count” system is a classification of wool in
terms of fiber diameter. The
“count” refers to the number of 560-yard hanks of yarn that can be spun from
one pound of wool top. The “micron” system measures the average fibber diameter in a
given lot.
The two basic properties of wool are scale, a measure of how
readily the wool will felt, and crimp or the fiber’s natural waviness,
which affects elasticity and loft. The
length of wool fibers ranges from 2” for fine Merino to 12” for Lincoln.
Some sheep breeds that produce spinnable wools include: Border
Leicester, Churro, Icelandic, Karakul, Lincoln, Romney, Cheviot, Columbia,
California Variegated Mutant (CVM), Corriedale, Dorset, Hampshire, Suffolk,
Oxford, Merino, Rambouillet, Polwarth, Targhee, Cormo, Bond, Shetland, and
Jacob. Some breeds originating in Great Britain (currently endangered
and/or protected) include: Cheviot,
Dorset Horn, Down, Blueface Leicester, Shetland, Cotswold, and Black Welsh
Mountain.
Seed fibers: Cotton, Kapok, and Milkweed. These
grow as appendages to seeds or inside seed pods.
They make good stuffing or padding if collceted in sufficient quantity.
Cotton is the only seed fiber that can be processed into serviceable
yarn. Cotton is almost pure
cellulose. Other plant fibers have
lesser percentages of cellulose.
Stem or Bast Fibers: Flax, Ramie, Jute, Hemp, Nettle, Basswood, and
Cedar. These plants form long strands under the inner bark of their
stems. Also called soft fibers,
they are noted for their flexibility, ease of spinning, and durability.
Leaf Fibers: Sisal
also called Agave.
These are called hard fibers because they’re stiffer and more brittle
than bast fibers. Their primary use
is for cordage (rope).
Wood Fibers: Rayon and Viscose: These are man-made products.
The raw materials are extracted from trees, coarse plants, and waste
wood-pulp.
Cotton: Genus Gossypium of the mallow family.
There are over 3 dozen species of wild and cultivated cotton plants.
It grows only in a narrow band of climates close to the equator.
Some of the oldest cotton samples date from 3000 B.C. The US is the world’s largest producer and exporter of
cotton. Types of cotton include:
Sea Island, Upland, American Pima, Egyptian, and Asiatic. Colors include: white, ivory, beige to dark brown, green,
yellow pink, and blue. White cotton
was originally a mutation of brown. Natural
color stocks are typically too short for commercial preparation and spinning.
Some natural colors have been hybridized by botanist Sally Fox into
FoxFibre® cotton plants.
Flax: linum
usitatissimum, the bast plant used to produce linens yarns.
Flax seeds are better known as linseeds. It was used by the Egyptians and is often mentioned in the
Bible. 10,000 years ago, Swiss Lake
Dwellers spun and wove fibers of natural flax.
Hemp: cannabis satira, of the mulberry family. One of the first plants cultivated as a fiber source, mostly
in Russia and Asia. Chinese texts
dating to 2800 B.C. mention hemp production.
In the US, hemp agriculture was outlawed in 1937.
The hemp plant has a wide range of uses from medicinal, to food, to
clothing, to cordage. The leaves
and other plant tissues produce a resin from which the active ingredient THC
(tetrahydrocannabinol) is extracted. Crushed and dried hemp is usually smoked in cigarettes or
pipes and goes by the names: hashish, charas, dagga, bhang, ganja, kef,
marijuana, pot, tea, grass, and Mary Jane.
The fibers are durable, resist rotting, and produce soft, lustrous
fabrics that dye well.
Jute: genus Corchorus of the basswood family. Around 40 species grow in Africa and Asia.
Kapok: bombax family, also called silk cotton.
Kenaf: Hibiscus cannabinus, an annual bast plant that grows
10 feet tall. Treated like flax and
hemp.
Milkweed:
asclepias, a perennial North American wildflower.
Nettle:
Urtica diocia, used since the Bronze Age in Europe
to weave sails for boats and mesh fabrics for sifting flower and filtering
honey.
Ramie: also known as China Grass, represents two varieties of
nettle: Ramie Bohemia nivea var. nivea and Rhea Bohemia
nivea var. tenasissima. Used
in China and Southeast Asia since ancient time.
Introduced to European textile mills in the 1850’s.
Since 1980’s there has been renewed interest, especially since the
development of nettle varieties without prickles.
Ramie is a stronger fiber than either cotton or flax, is smooth,
lustrous, and absorbs and releases moisture readily. Often used as a blend in summer clothing.
Miscellaneous:
various palm plants; these fibers are used most
often for baskets, hats, and brushes.
Grease Fleece:
unwashed animal fiber.
Skirting: removing
extraneous vegetable matter, animal wastes, stained, coarse, and too short
fibers prior to processing.
Pricking:
manual or mechanical fluffing of fiber locks prior to carding.
Carding: brushing
small quantities of fiber to both remove small amounts of extraneous material
and align the fibers prior to spinning. Carding
does not sort fibers of different lengths.
Hand Cards:
a set of two curved fiber preparation brushes with many short, fine, steel wires
embedded into a lined wooden face.
Flickers: hand
cards for very fine fibers used to gently separate individual locks immediately
prior to spinning.
Combing: a
set of two straight fiber preparation tools with one, two, or three parallel
sets of elongated teeth set into a wooden pr metal base.
Viking Combs have one of the set stationary while the other is
wielded by hand. They are usually
stainless steel; English Combs are most often longer then Vikings, are
usually carbon steel, and are wielded with both hands.
Twist Direction:
either
clockwise Z-Twist or counter-clockwise S-Twist.
Important because fibers twisted in one direction will wrap firmly around
each other when twisted together in the opposite direction.
Some plant fibers have an inherent direction of twist.
Drop Spindle: hand
tool for sinning and plying yarns; a central staff with a weighted “spindle”
to provide stability and extra speed. Variations
include: Navajo spindles, Turkish spindles, kick spindles, and high whorl
spindles.
Spinning Wheel: machine
to spin fibers. The operator
controls the speed and thickness of the finished product.
A spinning wheel is faster by the day but slower by the month than a drop
spindle. Types include: Saxony
wheel, Great or Walking Wheel, and Charka Wheel.
Distaff:
means to carry large quantity of unspun fiber.
Niddy Noddy: T-shaped
instrument used to wrap hanks of spun yarn.
Diz: small
plate with hold in the middle used to draw sliver
out of combed fiber.
Batt:
carded
fiber when removed from carding machine or hand cards.
Rolag: carded
fiber batt rolled into cigar shape.
Punis: carded
cotton fibers rolled into compact roll for Charka spinning
Roving:
lengths
of woolen prepared fiber
Sliver: lengths
of worsted (combed) prepared fiber
Retting: the
process of soaking bast fibers to rot and loosen the outer bark and dissolve
pectin that glues together inner strands. “Dew-retted”
fibers are spread on grass or rooftops to absorb nightly dew.
This takes 3-5 weeks and produces a silvery fiber.
Water-retted fibers are submerged in ponds, lakes, or streams.
This takes 4-12 days and produces a golden fiber.
Breaking: the
process of cracking the outer bark of retted flax stems and separating the woody
core into lengthwise pieces.
Scutching: scraping
to remove chaff and straw left after breaking process
Hackling
or Hetcheling: drawing
prepared (retted, broken, and scotched) flax through a series of finer and finer
combs to separate the stem fibers for spinning.
Knitting: yarn
manipulation using two single-pointed or three, four, or five double-pointed
needles. The fabric consists of
interlocking loops that can be enhanced with stitch patterning and color.
Knitting was introduced into Europe and Asia via trade routes and
political expansion. The earliest
examples of knitting date to 1200 AD. Knitting
flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and later became a
suitable pastime for ladies.
Netting:
ancient technique that predates weaving and twining.
Netting began during the Neolithic Age and was used to make fishnets,
snares, head coverings, and ceremonial skirts for women and young girls.
Knotting:
ladies’
pastime in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Western Europe and colonial
North America. Using a small
shuttle, knots are made in lengths of string linen, silk, or wool.
The thread is then applied to a ground fabric, forming patterns or
covering it completely.
Sewing:
attaching two
or more layers of fabric by means of one or more threads woven through the
layers.
Crochet:
French for
“a small hook.” Yarn
manipulation using a single needle with a hook at one end that forms a looped
fabric. The loops are locked
laterally as well as vertically. Known
in Britain by the end of the eighteenth century, gained immense popularity
during the Victorian Age.
Embroidery:
a method of decorating an existing structure (usually fabric,
but parchment or bark has been used). Can
be done by hand or machine (the latter since the 19th century).
Embroidery excludes simple seaming and sewing machine stitches, and also
needlework techniques such as knitting and crochet.
Patterns may be flat or raised, colors on a plain or patterned
background. Threads can be removed from the background to form additional
patterns.
Lace-making:
an openwork fabric constructed by looping, twisting, or
plaiting threads with a needle or bobbin. Usually
constructed independently. True
lace was first made no earlier than the late 15th century.
Finest quality laces were made in Italy, France, and Belgium.
Lace can be made from silk and linen, although cotton and wool have been
used for “peasant” laces. Lace
making was mechanized in the late 19th century.
Weaving:
see below
Felting:
produced by
the compression of fibers, usually wool, no weaving or twining.
One of the earliest forms of textiles (5th century BC), felt
is known in many parts of the world. Felt’s
advantages are its flexibility and ability to mold, also an excellent insulator.
Weaving:
After
felting, weaving is the oldest known method of producing fabric.
All woven fabric is produced on some kind of loom, a device that
holds a series of lengthwise threads under tension while additional fibers are
manipulated into a fixed position at right angles to the lengthwise direction.
Some historically important types of looms are lap loom, horizontal
ground loom, band loom, warp-weighted loom, draw loom, and jacquard loom.
Warp: lengthwise
threads that must be held under steady tension.
Weft:
crosswise
threads, interlaced with warp threads to form fabric.
Shed:
space between
the warp setts
Sett:
the numbers of warp threads per inch
Heddle:
series of small holes or loops through which the warp
yarns pass. The heddle raises and
lowers sections of the warp, creating the shed for the weft.
Treadles:
foot pedals
used to raise and lower the heddles
Shuttle:
carries weft
yarn
Dressing a loom:
the process where warp yarns are threaded onto a
loom.
Selvedge:
side edges
where the weft passes around the outer warps
Plain Weave:
also
called tabby, the simplest of all weaves.
Each warp interlaces with each weft, making a strong, somewhat stiff
weave. Used in most commercial
fabrics, it is also the foundation for other types of weaving patterns.
Twill Weave:
overlapped
and staggered warp and weft threads that produce diagonal lines in the material
Satin Weave:
similar
to irregular twills, used mostly as a basis for damask and brocade fabrics.
The top surface is smooth and shiny.
Double Weave:
two
layers of fabric woven simultaneously, one on top of the other.
Reversible.
Tapestry:
a woven picture, typically worked sideways.
Tapestry is defined as a weft-faced lain weave with discontinuous wefts.
Usually associated with pictorial wall hangings of medieval Europe.
Tapestries were also made by the Egyptians, Chinese, and by early
cultures of Central and South America.
Velvet:
a simple or
compound weave enhanced with a supplementary warp over a series of small rods.
When the rods are removed, small loops remain, which can then be cut.
Brocade:
a simple,
compound, or velvet weave with extra sets of yarns floating on the cloth
surface. Used to produce complex,
colorful fabrics.
Rug Weaving:
flat or
Kilim rugs that are tapestry woven. May
also include felted rugs, brocaded rugs or “soumak” and pile rugs.
Stain:
fugitive coloration
Dye:
permanent coloration
Mordant:
chemical pretreatment that allows complete precipitation
of pigment onto fiber. In older
times, these included: tree resin, egg white, blood, saliva, turpentine, glues,
urine, sear water, or wax. Modern
mordants include: alum, tin, chrome, copper, iron, ammonia bath, and tartaric
acid (cream of tartar.)
Even before spinning and weaving, colored earth, plant saps and juices
were applied to skin, invoking magic to protect, to heal, or to endow courage
and strength for a coming battle. Identification
of medicinal and pigment properties of plants and minerals occurred through
trial and error. Cultures often
associated certain colors with cosmic and/or religious symbols, status, or
superstition.
Substantitive Dyes:
both
water soluble and direct in dyeing. Examples
are lichens (orchil, also called dyer’s moss), turmeric, safflower, annatta,
and barberry.
Direct Dyes:
the
color of the solution is transferred directly to the fiber and is permanent only
with a mordant. Examples are:
Madder: Rubiaa tinctorum, the dried and ground roots of the
madder plant.
Saffron: Crocus sativus, produced from crocus blossoms
Kermes: Kermosossous vermilia, scale
insect found on the ilex oak in southern Europe
Cochineal: Coccus cacti, a scale insect found on cacti.
Thought to have come to Europe from the New World.
Recent discoveries reveal cochineal was known and used by the Assyrians
before the seventh century BC.
Lac: Coccus lacca,
a lac insect found in Ida, Burma, and southern Asia that also yields a resin
known as shellac
Henna: Lawsonia inermis, ground up root cultivated in
Middle East and southern Asia. More
often used to dye skin than fabric.
Woad: Isatis
tinctoria, plant cultivated
longest in history for its pigment qualities.
It yields a dee blue used by Kelts for body paint and fabric dyeing
Weld: Reseda luteola, also called dyer’s mignonette or
ochra. Also softens wool.
Dyer’s Broom: Genista tinctoria
Sumac:
Rhuss coriaria
Vat
Dyes: wash- and light-fast dyes that are
permanent without a mordant. Examples
are:
Indigo:Indigofera tinctoria, a legume
Murex Purple: crushed shells of mollusks from the genera Murex
and Purpura
Cutch: Accacia catechu or
Acacia tree and Areca catechu or betel nut
Yellow and Orange-Pigment Dye Sources: weld,
saffron, marigold, kamala, Osage orange, goldenrod, coreopsis, parmelia lichen,
dyer’s broom, sumac
Orange and Red-Pigment Dye Sources: madder,
red sandalwood, brazilwood, cochineal, cutch, orchil lichen (pinks) and murex
purple
Brown and Grey Pigment Dye Sources: black
walnut, sumac, alkanet, logwood
Blue Pigment Dye Sources: indigo,
woad
Black Pigment Dye Sources: insect
galls (when crushed and mixed with alum, makes ink and a black dye for wool)
Knitting
The Social History of American Knitting,
Anne L. MacDonald
Vogue Dictionary of
Knitting Stitches, Anne Matthews
Knitting
Counterpanes, Mary
Walker Phillips
Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle
Knitting, Alice
Starmore
Aran Knitting, Alice
Starmore
Spinning
Color and Fiber, Patricia
Lambert
The Whole Craft of Spinning, Carol
Kroll
Spinning and Weaving with Wool, Paula
Simmons
Weaving
Learning to Weave, Deborah
Chandler
Textiles: 5000 Years,
Jennifer Harris
America’s Printed and Painted Fabrics,
Florence H. Petit
The Technique of Weaving,
John Tovey
Fibers
Cotton: The Plant That Would Be King, Bertha
S. Dodge
Natural Fibers, Phyllis,
L. Friesen
Warm as Wool, Cool as Cotton, Carter
Houck
Silkworms, Sylvia A.
Johnson
The Story of Wool, William
F. Leggett
Natural Dyeing
A Waever’s Garden, Rita
Buchanan
Nature’s Colors, Ida Grae
“An Ode to Woad”
Bobbie
Irwin, Spin-Off, Summer 1997
America’s Indigo Blues, Resist-Printed
and Dyed Textiles of the Eighteenth Century, Florence H.
Petit
A History of Dyed Textiles,
Stuart Robinson
Indigo, Madder, and Marigold,
Trudy Van Stralen
History
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years,
Elizabeth Wayland Barber
“Honoring Native American Crafts
Today”
Piecework, July/August 1998
“Narcissa Thorne’s Miniature Career”
Deborah Pulliam, Piecework May/June 1998
Labors of Love: America’s Textiles and
Needlework
Judith Reiter Weissman
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