What Does That Mean - Textile Terms & Definitions

What Does That Mean

Textile Terms & Definitions

Abrasion

Wet processors (laundries) try to make garments look worn or faded by scraping or rubbing the surface of the fabric causing abrasion. Pumice stones are most frequently used. (see stone washing).

Acetate/Triacetate

The oldest man-made fibre and the first one made using tree pulp. Fabrics were made from acetate during World War 1 and used in airplane wings. Acetate has fair absorbency, high luster, (silk like) poor abrasion resistance, poor fastness to the sun and low strength which reduces 30% when wet.

Acid Wash (also know as Marble Wash/Moon Wash/Snow Wash)

Patented by the the Italian Candida Laundry company in 1986, the finish gave indigo jeans sharp contrasts. The process was achieved by soaking pumice stones in chlorine and letting these stones create contrast.

Acrylic

Synthetic fibre that is made with just the right combination of coal, air, water, petroleum and limestone. The fibre has fair affinity to dye, and pills easily.

Azoic Dyes

Azoic dyes are insoluble pigments formed within the fibre by padding, first with a soluble coupling compound and then with a diazotized base.

Basket Weave

A fabric weave where more than one filling threads pass over and under the same number of threads on alternate rows of the warp.

Bedford Cord

A fabric weave with ribs down the length of the fabric. The ribs can be any width. Looks like an uncut unbrushed corduroy without a velvet feeling.

Bleach

Laundries use this chemical to make denim jeans fade. Liquid bleach is usually an aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite, and dry powdered bleaches contain chloride of lime (calcium hypochlorite). Because chlorine destroys silk and wool, commercial hypochlorite bleaches should never be used on these fibres.

Bleaching

An industrial finishing process that takes off natural and artificial impurities from yarn or fabric. Also a process for laundries to make denim jeans fade.

Boll Weevil

This beetle is the most serious pest confronting cotton farmers. The boll weevil affects cotton production throughout North America. It is estimated that between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 bales of cotton are destroyed annually by this pest.

Each spring adult boll weevils deposit between 100-300 eggs in cotton buds. Because it takes only two to three weeks for an egg to develop into an adult, it is possible that two to ten generations of the beetle are created each year.

Insecticides cannot stop the boll weevil because the larvae lives inside the cotton boll where it destroys both seeds and surrounding fibres.

Organic farmers control the beetle by mowing down and ploughing their crops completely at the end of each season taking away the place for the pest to hide.

Canvas

The simplest weave in textiles is a plain weave (1x1) where the filling yarn is passed over and under individual warp yarns. Using thick yarns, makes the fabric into a canvas.

Carding

The industrial yarn preparation process where raw cotton is separated, opened, cleaned and made into sliver.

Catalyst

A substance or agent that initiates a chemical reaction and makes possible for it to proceed.

Cellulose

The basic structural component of plant cell walls, cellulose comprises about 33 percent of all vegetable matter (90 percent of cotton and 50 percent of wood are cellulose) and is the most abundant of all naturally occurring organic compounds.

Cellulose is processed to produce papers, fibres and is chemically modified to yield substances used in the manufacture of such items as rayon, plastics, and photographic films. Other cellulose derivatives are used as adhesives, explosives, thickening agents for foods, and in moisture-proof coatings.

Cellulosic Fibres

The chemical processing of short cotton fibres, linters, or wood pulp produce fibres like rayon, acetate, and triacetate. Other materials modified to produce fibres include protein, glass, metals, and rubber.

Chambray

A plain weave fabric, with a single but different warp and weft color.

Chino

The name came from both the trouser style worn by British Colonial troops in the 1800's and the fabric used for the fabric. Today a cotton trouser is considered as a chino and the fabric would be considered as a tightly woven 2 ply right hand 3x1 combed cotton twill.

Ciba-Geigy AG

Swiss multinational holding company created in 1970 in the merger of two concerns headquartered in Basel-Ciba AG and J.R. Geigy SA. The group consists of affiliates in some 50 countries and is engaged in the manufacture and marketing of dyes and chemicals; pharmaceuticals; plastics and additives; agricultural chemicals and fertilisers; photographic products; and household and garden products and toiletries.

Combing

An industrial yarn preparation process where fibres are combed to make them parallel in the sliver and short fibres are taken out.

Combed Yarn

A yarn whose sliver is combed - uses finer fibre than carded yarns and is more regular and expensive than carded yarn.

Conventional Cotton

Most popular (commercial) system for growing cotton by feeding plants heavy dosages of synthetic fertilisers, and eliminating competing species for maximum yields.

Using toxic pesticides (chemical herbicides, insecticides and defoliants) the process of providing conventional cotton is dangerous to farmers, people who live near farms, as well as our environment.

Core Spun Yarn

A yarn in which a base yarn is completely wrapped by a second yarn.

Cotton

Cotton, genus Gossypium, one of the world's most important crops, produces white fibrous bolls that are manufactured into a highly versatile textile. The plant has white flowers, which turn purple about two days after blooming, and large, divided leaves.

Length of fibre ranges from 3/8" to 2" (Egyptian, Sea Island). The longer the fibre, the higher the price and the more luxurious the fabric.

Cotton withstands high temperatures, can be boiled and hot pressed. It is resistant to abrasion has good affinity to dyes, and increases in strength 10% when wet.

The world's leading producers of cotton are China, the United States, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Turkey, Australia, and Egypt.

Cotton Gin

On March 14, 1794, Eli Whitney patented his invention of a machine that could take seeds out of cotton. Although one of the most important hardware developments in the history of cotton textiles, Whitney's gin invention was pirated and this put Whitney's company out of business by 1796.

Cotton inspection

The grading, and classing of cotton to facilitate interstate and foreign commerce in cotton by providing official quality determinations.

Yarn Count

The size of yarn is defined by its weight and fineness. You may have: Tex=No. of grams per kilometer; English Cotton Count= No. of 840 yd lengths per lb; Woolen Count (YSW)=No. of 256 yd lengths per lb; Woolen Count (Dewsbury)=No. of yard lengths per oz; Worsted Count= No. of 560 yd lengths per lb; Metric Count= No. of kilometers per kilogram; Linen Count (Wet Spun)= No. of 300 yd. length per lb; Jute Count= No. of lb per 14.400 yd; Denier= No. of grams per 9.000 meters; Decitex= No. of grams per 10.000 meters.

Courtaulds

One of the oldest and largest textile groups in the world. Divided today in 2 groups, Courtaulds Textiles with fabric production, garment manufacturing and retail, and Courtaulds Plc, a chemical company which produces fibres and has recently developed and marketed Tencel ®.

Crock

A term used to describe how dye rubs off fabric on skin or other fabric.

Defoliant

A chemical dust or spray applied to plants to cause their leaves to drop off prematurely. Defoliants are frequently applied to cotton in order to facilitate harvesting.

Defoliants were employed in warfare to eliminate enemy food crops and potential areas of concealment of enemy forces by South Vietnamese and U.S. forces in the Vietnam War; the most controversial substance being the chemical compound known as Agent Orange.

Dobby

A fabric with small geometric figures incorporated into the weave, it is made on special looms.

Double Needle

A seam commonly used in Jeanswear garments (shirts, jeans, jackets) where a sewing machine stitches two threads side by side for strength at one time.

Drawing/Drafting

The industrial process where slivers are pulled out after carding and/or combing.

Duck

Once known as a fabric lighter than canvas, today a duck is considered to be a synonym for canvas or a plain weave cotton made from medium to coarse yarns.

DuPont

They brought you Nylon, Teflon, Lycra....

Dyeing

The industrial process to add color to fibre, yarn, fabric, or garments.

Eight O Seven (807)

The law that allows fabrics to be cut in the United States, garments to be assembled in Mexico, Caribbean and Central American countries, returned to the United States with tariff assessed only on the added value (sewing).

Enzymes

Are proteins and as such are present in all living cells. Enzymes speed up chemical processes that would run very slowly if at all. They are non-toxic and readily broken down. Enzymes are used in textile processing, mainly in the finishing of fabrics and garments.

Fair to Middling

The name for the grade of cotton usually used in the spinning of yarns that will be used for the production of denim fabric.

Fibre

The smallest textile component. A near microscopic, hairlike substance that may be natural or manmade. Are units of matter having length at least 100 times their diameter or width. Fibres suitable for textile use possess adequate length, fineness, strength, and flexibility for yarn formation and fabric construction, and for withstanding the intended use of the completed fabric.

Other properties affecting textile fibre performance include elasticity, crimp (waviness), moisture absorption, reaction to heat and sunlight, reaction to the various chemicals applied during processing and in the dry cleaning or laundering of the completed fabric, and resistance to insects and micro-organisms. The wide variation of such properties among textile fibres determines their suitability for various uses.

Filling (also called weft)

The lengthwise, selvage to selvage horizontal, yarns carried over and under the warp. Filling yarns generally have less twist than warp yarns because they are subjected to less strain in the weaving process and therefore require less strength.

In pile-fabric constructions, such as velvet or velveteen, extra sets of warps are used to form the pile. A single filling yarn is known as a pick.

Flannel

Any napped fabric be it, twill, plain weave, printed, yarn dyed or solid color.

Flax

A natural vegetable fibre composed mainly of cellulose that is processed from the stems of the flax plant. The flax plant yields long fine fibres that can be from 2"-36" in length while the color can range from light ivory to dark tan or grey.

Fox Fibre ®

Naturally Coloured Cotton, the fibres of which grow from seeds that already have their color and do not need to be dyed. It is believed that six colors (pink, red, lavender, brown, green and yellow) were developed by the ancient peoples of the Americas thousands of years ago. Sally Fox managed to breed plants that bring the fibre quality of the wilder brown cottons up to that required by modern spinning technology. FOXFIBRE® colors grow best without chemicals, opening the door to organically grown cotton, the COLORGANIC® cotton. Three shades are available today, Coyote Brown, Buffalo Brown and Palo Verde Green.

Gabardine

A distinctive 45° or 63° warp face left hand twill if single plied yarns are used or right hand twill of a two ply yarn is used in the weft. Gabardines are made from any fibre not just cotton.

Ginning

The industrial process where seeds are taken out of picked cotton.

Good Middling

The name for the best grade of cotton.

Gray Goods/Loom-state/Greige/Grey

Words used to describe fabric that is just off the loom, woven but unfinished in any way.

Hand or Handle

The way a fabric feels. This is a very subjective judgment of the feel of a fabric and it should help decide if a fabric is suitable for a specific end use. Hand may be crisp, soft, drapeable, smooth, springy, stiff, cool, warm, rough, hard, limp, soapy........

Finishing and garment wash affect the final handle of a fabric.

Harness

The frame holding heddles that have warp yarns threaded through its eyes.

Heather/Cross Dye/Top Dye/Melange

A mixed fabric color is achieved (the best examples are grey t-shirts, socks or wool used in suitings) by using different colors of fibre, and mixing them together. Black and white fibre mixed will combine to give grey heather fibre.

Heddles

Steel wires, or thin flat steel strips held by the frame, with a loop or eye near the centre through which one or more warp yarns pass on the loom so that the thread movement is controllable in weaving. Heddles control the weave pattern and shed as the harnesses are raised and lowered during the weaving.

Hemp

The controversial fibre with the bad image. Hemp is a low cost annual seed plant that grows in most climates. Hemp's natural fibre and seed oil have over 25,000 possible industrial applications and these were once competitors of wood pulp, cotton, and petroleum products like inks, paints, plastics, solvents, sealants, and synthetic fabrics. Hemp (official name cannabis sativa, L, from the Greek Kannabis ) fell victim to the anti-drug sentiment of the times when the U.S. Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937.

The intent of this law was to prohibit the use of marijuana, but it created so much red tape that the production of industrial hemp became nearly impossible in spite of all the products that derive from hemp. In his October 30, 1988, editorial in California's most conservative newspaper, The Orange County Register, senior columnist Alan Bock stated that "Since 1937, about half the forests in the world have been cut down to make paper. If hemp had not been outlawed, most would still be standing, oxygenating the planet."

Herringbone

Herringbone is a weave where twill warp stripes are created by running twills in different directions.

Hoechst Celanese

Calls their company "a science-based, market-driven company, who produce and market chemicals, fibres and films, engineering plastics, high-performance and specialty materials, pharmaceuticals, and animal-health and crop-protection products". They are the largest subsidiary of the Hoechst Group, a premier worldwide organisation with 280 companies in 120 countries and an annual sales volume of $28 billion.

Indigo

Indigo is a blue vat dyestuff, that was originally taken from the "Indigofera tinctoria" plant by fermenting the leaves of the shrub. In 1897, fourteen years after Adolf von Bayer identified the chemical structure of indigo, the chemical became synthetically manufactured.

Indigo's inherent features are good colourfastness to water and light, a continually fading and its inability to penetrate fibres completely. This allows the blue color in jeans made from indigo to always look irregular and individual.

Intimate blend yarn

Different fibres are blended together to make a yarn composed of two fibres. The purpose is to mix the properties and characteristics of individual fibres into one new mixed fibre.

Jean

Comes from the French word "Genes" used to describe the pants sailors from Genoa once wore.

While the historical definition implied that all jeans were made of denim, jeans today usually refer to a garment that has 5 pockets (two in the front, two in the back and a small change pocket on the front right pocket) and this style can be made using any kinds of fabrics be it corduroy, twills, or bull denim.

Khaki

Khaki uniforms were introduced by Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden for British colonial troops in India and were later widely used at the time of the Indian Mutiny (1857-58) and became the official colour for uniforms of British armies, native and colonial, in India.

Today, the word is used both as a color and as a style of trouser. Khaki is a beige to yellow military color and the garment is usually a men's army style trouser made of a twill cotton fabric.

Laundry

A manufacturing company that takes unwashed jeans, and processes them. This processing includes washing, stone washing, sandblasting, and garment dyeing. Laundries today are critical in making jeans look commercial and wash development has become equally important to fabric development in the jeanswear industry.

The best laundries and wash developments come from Italy, Japan and the United States.

Left Hand Twill

A fabric weave where the twill line runs from the top left hand corner of the fabric towards the bottom right. Usually in piece dyed fabrics, left hand twill fabrics are woven from single plied yarns in the warp.

Linen

A fibre taken from straw of the flax plant. The stems are steeped in water to remove resinous matter and allow fermentation to take place. After fermentation is completed, the fibrous material is separated from the woody matter and spun into thread. The fibre can be from 2"-36" long with a natural color that varies from light ivory to dark tan or grey. Linen is very absorbent, take dyes more readily than cotton but has poor resiliency.

Loom

The weaving machine. Most famous loom manufacturers are Sulzer Rüti from Switzerland, Picanol from Belgium, Dornier from France, Tsudakoma /Toyoda from Japan and Vamatex from Italy.

The word loom (from Middle English Lome, "tool") is applied to any set of devices permitting a warp to be tensioned and a shed to be formed.

The warp shed is formed with the aid of heddles where one heddle is provided for each end of warp thread. By pulling one end of the heddle or the other, the warp end can be deflected to one side or the other of the main sheet of ends. The frame holding the heddles is called a harness.

Today there are three kinds of looms: dummy shuttle, rapier, and fluid jet.

The dummy-shuttle type, the most successful of the shuttleless looms, makes use of a dummy shuttle, a projectile that contains no weft but that passes through the shed in the manner of a shuttle and leaves a trail of yarn behind it.

The rapier type conveys a pick of weft from a stationary package through the shed by means of either a single rapier or a pair of rapiers. Rapiers are either rigid rods or flexible steel tapes, which are straight when in the shed but on withdrawal are wound onto a wheel, in order to save floor space. Rapier looms are, on the whole, simpler and more versatile than dummy-shuttle looms but are slower in weaving speed.

There are of two kinds of fluid-jet looms, one employing a jet of air, the other a water jet, to propel a measured length of weft through the shed. The significance of this is that nothing solid is passed into the shed other than the weft, which eliminates the difficulties normally associated with checking and warp protection, and reduces the noise to an acceptable level. The machines can attain great weaving speed and output.

Lycra ®

Dupont's trademark for spandex fibre.

Lyocell (see Tencel)

The generic name given to the cellulosic fibre developed by Courtaulds and marketed by them under the Tencel brand name.

Man made Fibre

Viscose and Acetate, derived from cellulose were almost all the man-made fibres in existence before World War II. During the 1930s, after intensive fibre research, several new synthetic fibres were produced experimentally which led to the production of nylon (Dupont's invention), the first commercially successful synthetic-textile fibre.

Since that time, synthetic-fibre production has created polyesters, acrylics, polyolefins, and others.

Mercerization

An industrial process used on yarn or fabrics to increase lustre as well as dye affinity.

It can also be used (on fabrics destined for the jeanswear industry) for keeping dye on the surface of the yarns or fabrics so that dyes do not fully penetrate the fibre.

Natural Dyes

Up to to the middle of the 19th century there were only natural dyes and most of these these were vegetable origin. Natural indigo being one of the more important dyes.

Natural dyes usually have no affinity for textile fibres until the fibres are treated with aluminum, iron, or tin compounds to receive the dye (mordanting). This is a problematic process and the dyes in any case have poor fastness to sun or abrasion.

Natural Fibres

Any hairlike raw material directly obtainable from an animal, vegetable, or mineral source that can be convertible, after spinning, into yarns and then into woven cloth. The usefulness of a fibre for commercial purposes is determined by it's length, strength, pliability, elasticity, abrasion resistance, absorbency, and various surface properties

The earliest indication of hemp is in South East Asia in 4500 BC, linen in Egypt in 3400 BC, and cotton fibre use is in India in 3000 BC.

Nylon (PA)

Nylon is a synthetic fibre invented by DuPont that was used originally for hosiery but is currently used in many applications. Nylon is naturally water repellent, easy to dye, and very strong. These features have helped nylon replace cotton in many industrial uses like bags and flags and is very popular for use in the outerwear apparel industry. Nylon has a poor absorbency.

O.F., or A.F.

For Other Fibres (Altre Fibre), can be found on the Composition label of fabrics containing recycled materials. Many of the fabrics produced in the Italian area of Prato are made using yarns spun from blends of reclaimed wool (and, of course, other fibres!).

Optical Brighteners or Optical Whiteners

Chemicals that make fabrics appear to reflect more light than they really do, to make them brighter (they convert ultraviolet light to visible light in the blue region). They are sometimes used in the manufacture of fabrics and are often included in the formula of many detergents sold for home use.

Organic Cotton

Cotton grown where toxic chemicals have been eliminated in all growing process steps. Living soil (defined as being free of toxic chemicals for three years) is the basis of an organic farm and organic farmers have proven when plants are healthy they are able to resist insects, weeds and disease.

Oxford

Originally made in Oxford, England, it is a plain weave fabric where 2 or more filling yarns pass over and under 1 or more parallel warp yarns. It is possible to have 2x1, 2x2, 3x2, 4x4, or 8x8.

Used in dress shirtings where the warp is a color and the filling is natural. Also very popular in nylon for outerwear jackets.

Oxidation

Where oxygen and another substance chemically join. Occurs when indigo yarn comes out of the indigo bath between dips, and is critical for the the dyestuff to penetrate the fibre.

Padazoic

A little known dyestuff that was used in the late 1960's and early 1970's instead of indigo when there was insufficient indigo production throughout the world to support the demand.

Pigment Dyes

Dyes without affinity for fibre and are therefore held to fabric with resins. They are available in almost any color and have been used extensively in the jeans wear industry by fabric dyers who want to create fabrics that fade.

Pima Cotton

Cotton grown in Peru and America where the fibre length is long (1 3/8"-1 5/8") and luxurious. A beautiful quality of cotton. The best available after Sea Island and Egyptian cotton fibre.

Plain Weave

The simplest and most common fabric weave where the filling yarn passes over and under each warp yarn in alternating rows.

Ply

All yarns are single ply unless twisted with another yarn. Terms used are: 2 ply if two yarns are twisted together and 3 ply if three are twisted. Plied yarns are used to make yarns stronger. In the jeans-wear industry it has become important to ply yarns in piece dyed fabrics that are intended to endure a long stone wash cycle.

Points / Demerit Points

Visual fabric inspections require a numerical assessment to be made to areas of the fabric where there are defects.

Polyamide (PA)

See Nylon.

Polyester (PES)

Polyester is made of chemicals derived from coal, air, water and oil.

Polyester is a strong fibre with a good dye affinity, a high luster and good resiliency. In the 1960's polyester and cotton were blended and had mass market appeal due to the blending of both fibres' strengths. Polyester's weak characteristics are that it pills, and is non-absorbent.

Poplin

Name of a light weight tightly (more warp threads than filling) woven plain weave fabric where a coarser yarn is used in the filling than the warp, leaving a slight rib effect across the width of the goods.

US customs defines this fabric as "not of a square construction, whether napped or not, weighing less than 200 gms per square metre, containing 33 or less warp ends and filling picks per square centimetre".

Pumice Stones

A volcanic stone used for stone washing garments. Pumice is popular because of its strength and light weight.

Quality Control

This term unfortunately can mean everything and nothing! It is normally used to imply inspection of products throughout the manufacturing process to ensure that the finished products meet the standards.

Ramie

The perennial stalk producing ramie plant has been cultivated in eastern Asia for fibre since prehistoric times. Growing 3-8 feet high, with heart shaped leaves, the plant's fibres was used in fabric in ancient Egypt and was known in Europe during the Middle Ages. Ramie fibre did not achieve importance in the West until the 1930s.

Because of its desirable properties, including strength and durability, ramie has frequently been promoted as a textile fibre of great potential.

Ramie fibre is pure white in colour, lustrous, moisture absorbent, and readily dyed. The fibre is stronger than flax, cotton, or wool. Fabric made from ramie fibre is easily laundered, increasing in strength when wet, and does not shrink or lose its shape. It dries quickly and becomes smoother and more lustrous with repeated washings. Ramie is resistant to mildew and other types of micro-organism attack and good fastness to sun.

Because ramie is brittle, spinning it is difficult and weaving is complicated because ramie has a very hairy yarn surface.

Rayon

The synthetic fibre known as rayon is produced from regenerated cellulose (wood pulp) that has been chemically treated. Fabrics made of rayon are strong, highly absorbent, and soft; they drape well and can be dyed in brilliant, long-lasting colors.

Rayon fibres are also used as reinforcing cords in motor tires, and their excellent absorbency makes them useful in medical and surgical materials. Rayon can be used alone or blended with other synthetic or natural fibers. Since the mid-1980s rayon use has grown dramatically as new formulations and blends have added more strength and softness to the fabric and have made it more absorbent, more washable, and less vulnerable to wrinkling.

Right Hand Twill

A fabric weave where the twill line runs from the top right hand corner of the fabric towards the bottom left. Usually in piece dyed fabrics right hand twills use two plied yarns in the warp.

Sanding/Emerising

A fabric finishing process where fabrics are sanded (real sandpaper) to make the surface soft without hair. Can be performed before or after dyeing.

Sanforize

A Cluett Peabody and Company trademark for the preshrinking fabric process that limits residual fabric shrinkage to under 1%. Developed in the late 1920's by the Sanforize Co., the process was used on the garments in Wrangler's first jeans line in 1947.

Sandblast

A laundry process where jeans before washing are literally shot with guns of sand in order to make the jeans look as if they have been worn. While originally done only by hand, this processing has recently become automated. Chemicals are also now used in many laundries replacing sand.

Satin and Sateen

A fabric weave where one yarn floats over a series of yarns before it interlaces once. When the warp floats over a series of picks (at least four) the fabric is called satin. When the filling floats over a series of ends the fabric is called sateen. Satin weaves make fabric surfaces shiny and very smooth.

Scouring

An industrial process where dirt or starch (oil, grease, sizing) is taken off fabrics.

Screening

A laundry process where jeans are checked for quality, repaired, price tagged and packed.

Sea Island Cotton

Along with Egyptian cotton fibre, the finest grade of cotton available. The fibre can be spun into yarn two times finer than Pima, the next best cotton grade.

Shade Batching

The process of selecting batches of fabrics into homogeneous shade lots to obtain consistent color continuity in garment making.

Shade Blanket

Where fabric is cut from each roll of fabric, sewn together, with roll numbers on the back of each pad to allow manufacturers to wash and identify all shade colors of each roll. This is an important tool in cutting apparel made from denim to ensure you cut garments from the same shade group.

Shuttle

The weft insertion device that propels the filling yarn across (over and under) the warp yarns. Shuttles used to be (shuttle looms) wooden with a metal tip.

Silicone

Silicones are silicon-containing polymer materials that have found wide use in industry because of their great stability. They are available as fluids, sealant-adhesives, mouldable resins, and rubbers. When the first silicone oil was made in the 1870s, its insensitivity to both high and low temperatures was noted, but the first silicone rubbers were not invented until 1943.

In the 1950s silicones were developed commercially for the aerospace and electronics industries but rapidly found applications in many fields, especially construction. Some fluid silicons are used in garment finishing, to give a smooth handle to fabrics.

Silk

Silk is the filament secreted by the silkworm when spinning its cocoon, and the name for the threads, yarns, and fabrics made from the filament. Most commercial silk is produced by the cultivated silkworm, Bombyx mori, which feeds exclusively on the leaves of certain varieties of mulberry trees and spins a thin, white filament.

Several species of wild silkworm feed on oak, cherry, and mulberry leaves and produce a brown, hairy filament that is three times the thickness of the cultivated filament and is called tussah silk.

Singeing

A phase of finishing when the fabric surface hair is burnt (or singed) using a controlled flame, to give a clean appearance to the fabrics.

Sizing

Starch, gelatin, glue, wax that is added to fabrics in the finishing state to improve touch or weight and to help fabric laying in the cutting phase.

Sizing is also applied to reinforce warp yarns during weaving. Most common starches used are corn in the United States, rice in Asia, and potato in Europe, or PVOH and other chemical substances. Look out for fabrics containing P.C.P., a highly toxic chemical still used sometimes as sizing agent!

Skewing

Twill fabrics have to be ensured not to skew or not unroll, a special process called pre-skewing is part of fabric finishing.

Sliver

Continuous strands of fibre untwisted that come from carding.

Slub Yarn

A yarn that is spun purposely to look irregular in shape (length and diameter). Usually slub yarns are very regular in repeat and size.

Spandex (PU)

Generic name for man-made fibres derived from a resin called segmented polyurethane. It has good stretch and recovery properties.

Spinning

Spinning is the process by which cotton, wool, flax, and other short fibres are twisted together to produce a yarn or thread suitable for weaving into cloth, winding into rope or cable, or used in sewing. (Long, continuous fibres, such as silk, are not spun. To achieve strength and the appropriate thickness, they are thrown, or twisted, together.)

Staple

Short lengths of fibres, normally measured in inches or fraction of inches, like those naturally found in cotton and wool. Silk, on the other hand, is the only natural fibre that does not come in staple lengths but instead in filament lengths.

Stone wash

A type of wash where jeans are abraded with stones.

S-Twist Yarn

A left handed twisted yarn. See also Z-Twist.

Sulphur

A type of dyestuff used frequently on blacks, and neutrals (khaki's) while economical, has only moderate fastness to washing and light.

Synthetic dyes

In 1856 William Henry Perkin, an English chemist, discovered the synthetic dye mauveine. From this day forward, synthetic dyestuffs began to supplant natural dyes. The synthetic-dye manufacturing industry was founded by Perkin in 1857, when he set up facilities near London for the commercial production of mauveine and, later, of other synthetic dyes.

Other dye-making factories followed both in the U.K. and continental Europe, and new dyes began to appear on the market.

Synthetic Fibres

Chemicals combined into large molecules called polymers, produce fibres like nylon, polyester, spandex, acrylic, modacrylic, olefin, saran, spandex, and vinyon.

Tencel ®

A cellulose fibre invented by Courtaulds using a non-chemical solvent. It was originally developed to produce viscose fibres without polluting the environment. The end result was a new fibre which was not only environmentally friendly (more than any other fibre) but also featured very high strength and a wonderful touch.

Textile Industry

Derived from the Latin "texere" (to weave), and originally used to describe woven fabrics, textiles has become a general term for fibres, yarns, and other materials that can be made into fabrics as well as for woven or knitted fabrics.

Threads, cords, ropes, braids, lace, embroidery, nets, bonding, felting, or tufting are textiles.

Textile Finishing

The non coloring process to make woven or knitted fabric more acceptable to the consumer. Finishing processes include bleaching prior to dyeing; treatments, sizing applied after dyeing affecting touch treatments adding properties to enhance performance, such as preshrinking.

Greige fabric is generally dirty, harsh, unattractive and requires considerable skill and imagination for conversion into a desirable product. Italian textile mills are famous as being the best finishers in the world.

Trevira ®

A branded type of Polyester, produced by Hoechst Fibres Inc. It offers better Pilling performance than regular Polyester.

Twill

The term twill designates both a textile weave characterised by diagonal structural designs and the cloth made from that weave. The weave may be varied to produce broken or intertwining effects. Twill fabrics are usually firm and are used especially in suits and in sport and work clothes.

Twill-weave fabrics are also used for linings, pockets, and mattress ticking. Serge, gabardine, and cheviot are major types of twill.

Uneven Yarn

Ring Spun yarn is by nature never perfectly regular; these irregularities can be used to give character to the yarn and subsequently to the fabric. It can be either light to give a natural appearance, or pronounced, to give an "antique" effect.

Even Open End yarns can sometimes reproduce the antique effect, although they are very regular and cannot give a natural effect.

Velvet

A fabric with a short, closely woven pile, originally made of silk, it is today made of rayon, nylon, acrylic cut pile fabrics.

Virgin Fibres

Fibres never made into fabric before, primarily used for wool fibres (virgin wool), to differentiate between these and reclaimed, reprocessed, and reused fibres.

Viscose Rayon

see Rayon

Warp

The lengthwise, vertical yarns carried over and under the weft. Warp yarns generally have more twist than weft yarns because they are subjected to more strain in the weaving process and therefore require more strength.

Weft (also called filling)

In pile-fabric constructions, such as velvet or velveteen, extra sets of warps are used to form the pile. A single filling yarn is known as a pick.

Width

One of the most controversial issues in fabric sale; it can be "selvage to selvage", where the width value is inclusive of selvages, or "usable", where the value indicates the fabric effectively cuttable.

X-Dyed Fabrics

Cross dyed fabrics present a two color weave, obtained using different color yarns in the warp and in the weft.

Yarn

A generic term for a continuous strand spun from a group of natural or synthetic staple fibres, or filaments, used in weaving, knitting to form textile fabrics.

Yarn Dyed

Or Color Wovens, are fabrics produced with yarns already dyed prior to the weaving process.

Z-Twist

A right-handed twisted yarn, as opposed to S-Twist.

Now, back to the mill !