1.
Textile
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A textile or cloth is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, hemp, Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or felting. The words fabric and cloth are used in textile assembly trades as synonyms for textile, however, there are subtle differences in these terms in specialized usage. Textile refers to any material made of interlacing fibres, a fabric is a material made through weaving, knitting, spreading, crocheting, or bonding that may be used in production of further goods. Cloth may be used synonymously with fabric but is often a piece of fabric used for a specific purpose. The word textile is from Latin, from the adjective textilis, meaning woven, from textus, the word cloth derives from the Old English clað, meaning a cloth, woven or felted material to wrap around one, from Proto-Germanic kalithaz. The discovery of dyed flax fibres in a cave in the Republic of Georgia dated to 34,000 BCE suggests textile-like materials were made even in prehistoric times. The production of textiles is a craft whose speed and scale of production has been altered almost beyond recognition by industrialization, however, for the main types of textiles, plain weave, twill, or satin weave, there is little difference between the ancient and modern methods. Textiles have an assortment of uses, the most common of which are for clothing and for such as bags. In the household they are used in carpeting, upholstered furnishings, window shades, towels, coverings for tables, beds, and other flat surfaces, in the workplace they are used in industrial and scientific processes such as filtering. Textiles are used in traditional crafts such as sewing, quilting. Textiles for industrial purposes, and chosen for other than their appearance, are commonly referred to as technical textiles. Technical textiles include textile structures for applications, medical textiles, geotextiles, agrotextiles. In all these applications stringent performance requirements must be met, woven of threads coated with zinc oxide nanowires, laboratory fabric has been shown capable of self-powering nanosystems using vibrations created by everyday actions like wind or body movements. Fashion designers commonly rely on textile designs to set their fashion collections apart from others, armani, the late Gianni Versace, and Emilio Pucci can be easily recognized by their signature print driven designs. Textiles can be made from many materials and these materials come from four main sources, animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic. In the past, all textiles were made from natural fibres, including plant, animal, in the 20th century, these were supplemented by artificial fibres made from petroleum. Textiles are made in various strengths and degrees of durability, from the finest gossamer to the sturdiest canvas, microfibre refers to fibres made of strands thinner than one denier
2.
Carding
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Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibers between differentially moving surfaces covered with card clothing and it breaks up locks and unorganised clumps of fibre and then aligns the individual fibers to be parallel with each other. In preparing wool fibre for spinning, carding is the step that comes after teasing, the word is derived from the Latin carduus meaning thistle or teasel, as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool. These ordered fibres can then be passed on to other processes that are specific to the end use of the fibre, Cotton, batting, felt, woollen or worsted yarn. Carding can also be used to create blends of different fibres or different colours, when blending, the carding process combines the different fibres into a homogeneous mix. Commercial cards also have rollers and systems designed to remove some vegetable matter contaminants from the wool, common to all carders is card clothing. Card clothing is made from a flexible backing in which closely spaced wire pins are embedded. The shape, length, diameter, and spacing of these pins are dictated by the card designer. Carding machines are known as cards, fibre may be carded by hand for hand spinning. Science historian Joseph Needham ascribes the invention of bow-instruments used in technology to India. The earliest evidence for using bow-instruments for carding comes from India and these carding devices, called kaman and dhunaki, would loosen the texture of the fibre by the means of a vibrating string. At the turn of the century, wool in England was being carded using pairs of hand cards. In 1748 Lewis Paul of Birmingham, England invented two hand driven carding machines, the first used a coat of wires on a flat table moved by foot pedals. On the second, a coat of wire slips was placed around a card which was wrapped around a cylinder. Daniel Bourn obtained a patent in the same year, and probably used it in his spinning mill at Leominster. The invention was developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton. Arkwrights second patent for his machine was subsequently declared invalid because it lacked originality. From the 1780s, the machines were set up in mills in the north of England
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Wool
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Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other animals, including cashmere and mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, angora from rabbits, and other types of wool from camelids. Wool has several qualities that distinguish it from hair or fur, it is crimped, Wool is produced by follicles which are small cells located in the skin. These follicles are located in the layer of the skin called the epidermis. Follicles can be classed as primary or secondary follicles. Primary follicles produce three types of fiber, Kemp, medullated fibers and true wool fibers, secondary follicles only produce true wool fibers. Medullated fibers share nearly identical characteristics to hair and are long but lack crimp, Kemp fibers are very coarse and shed out. Wools scaling and crimp make it easier to spin the fleece by helping the individual fibers attach to each other, because of the crimp, wool fabrics have greater bulk than other textiles, and they hold air, which causes the fabric to retain heat. Wool has a specific heat coefficient, so it impedes heat transfer in general. This effect has benefited desert peoples, as Bedouins and Tuaregs use wool clothes for insulation, felting of wool occurs upon hammering or other mechanical agitation as the microscopic barbs on the surface of wool fibers hook together. The amount of crimp corresponds to the fineness of the wool fibers, a fine wool like Merino may have up to 100 crimps per inch, while coarser wool like karakul may have as few as one or two. In contrast, hair has little if any scale and no crimp, on sheep, the hair part of the fleece is called kemp. Wool fibers readily absorb moisture, but are not hollow, Wool can absorb almost one-third of its own weight in water. Wool absorbs sound like many other fabrics and it is generally a creamy white color, although some breeds of sheep produce natural colors, such as black, brown, silver, and random mixes. Wool ignites at a higher temperature than cotton and some synthetic fibers, Wool carpets are specified for high safety environments, such as trains and aircraft. Wool is usually specified for garments for firefighters, soldiers, Wool is considered by the medical profession to be allergenic. Sheep shearing is the process by which the fleece of a sheep is cut off. After shearing, the wool is separated into four categories, fleece, broken, bellies. In Australia before being auctioned, all Merino fleece wool is objectively measured for micron, yield, staple length, staple strength, the sheep is given a dip in antiseptic solution after shearing, so as to cure the wounds caused during shearing
4.
Cotton
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Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the family of Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will tend to increase the dispersal of the seeds. The plant is a native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa. The greatest diversity of wild species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia. Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds, the fiber is most often spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile. Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, China is the worlds largest producer of cotton, but most of this is used domestically. The United States has been the largest exporter for many years, in the United States, cotton is usually measured in bales, which measure approximately 0.48 cubic meters and weigh 226.8 kilograms. Cotton cultivation in the region is dated to the Indus Valley Civilization, the Indus cotton industry was well-developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the industrialization of India. Between 2000 and 1000 BC cotton became widespread across much of India, for example, it has been found at the site of Hallus in Karnataka dating from around 1000 BC. Cotton fabrics discovered in a cave near Tehuacán, Mexico have been dated to around 5800 BC, the domestication of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico is dated between 3400 and 2300 BC. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, and traded with fishing villages along the coast for supplies of fish. The Spanish who came to Mexico and Peru in the early 16th century found the people growing cotton and this may be a reference to tree cotton, Gossypium arboreum, which is a native of the Indian subcontinent. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Cotton has been spun, woven and it clothed the people of ancient India, Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, in Iran, the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era, however, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. The planting of cotton was common in Merv, Ray and Pars of Iran, in Persian poets poems, especially Ferdowsis Shahname, there are references to cotton. Marco Polo refers to the products of Persia, including cotton. John Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who visited the Safavid Persia, during the Han dynasty, cotton was grown by Chinese peoples in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Mohamed Ali Pasha accepted the proposition and granted himself the monopoly on the sale and export of cotton in Egypt, and later dictated cotton should be grown in preference to other crops
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Scots pine
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In the north of its range, it occurs from sea level to 1,000 m, while in the south of its range it is a high altitude mountain tree, growing at 1, 200–2,600 m altitude. It is readily identified by its combination of short, blue-green leaves. The species is found on poorer, sandy soils, rocky outcrops. On fertile sites, Scots pine is out-competed by other, usually spruce or broad-leaved tree species and it is the national tree of Scotland. The bark is thick, scaly dark grey-brown on the lower trunk, the habit of the mature tree is distinctive due to its long, bare and straight trunk topped by a rounded or flat-topped mass of foliage. The lifespan is normally 150–300 years, with the oldest recorded specimens in Lapland, the shoots are light brown, with a spirally arranged scale-like pattern. On vigorous young trees the leaves can be twice as long, leaf persistence varies from two to four years in warmer climates, and up to nine years in subarctic regions. Seedlings up to one year old bear juvenile leaves, these are single, 2–3 cm long, flattened, the cone scales have a flat to pyramidal apophysis, with a small prickle on the umbo. The seeds are blackish, 3–5 mm in length with a pale brown 12–20 mm wing and are released when the open in spring 22–24 months after pollination. The pollen cones are yellow, occasionally pink, 8–12 mm long, over 100 Pinus sylvestris varieties have been described in the botanical literature, but only three or four are now accepted. They differ only minimally in morphology, but with more pronounced differences in genetic analysis, populations in westernmost Scotland are genetically distinct from those in the rest of Scotland and northern Europe, but not sufficiently to have been distinguished as a separate botanical variety. Trees in the far north of the range were formerly treated as var. lapponica. The bulk of the range, from Scotland and Spain to central Siberia, the Balkans, northern Turkey, Crimea, and the Caucasus. Foliage more consistently glaucous all year, not becoming duller in winter, mongolia and adjoining parts of southern Siberia and northwestern China. Foliage duller green, shoots grey-green, leaves occasionally up to 12 cm long, the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain and possibly other Spanish populations Kalenicz. Cones often with scales, but doubtfully distinguishable on morphology. From border regions between Russia and Ukraine, in central and southern Europe, it occurs with numerous additional species, including European black pine, mountain pine, Macedonian pine, and Swiss pine. In the eastern part of its range, it occurs with Siberian pine, the tree spread across the British Isles after the Last Glacial Maximum
6.
Tartan
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Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven wool, but now they are made in other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland, Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns. Tartan is often called plaid in North America, but in Scotland, Tartan is made with alternating bands of coloured threads woven as both warp and weft at right angles to each other. The weft is woven in a simple twill, two over—two under the warp, advancing one thread at each pass and this forms visible diagonal lines where different colours cross, which give the appearance of new colours blended from the original ones. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a pattern of squares and lines known as a sett. The Dress Act of 1746 attempted to bring the clans under government control by banning the tartan. When the law was repealed in 1782, it was no longer ordinary Highland dress, until the middle of the nineteenth century, the highland tartans were only associated with either regions or districts, rather than any specific Scottish clan. Today tartan is no longer limited to textiles, but is used on non-woven mediums, such as paper, plastics, packaging, the English word tartan is most likely derived from the French tartarin meaning Tartar cloth. It has also suggested that tartan may be derived from modern Scottish Gaelic tarsainn. Today tartan usually refers to coloured patterns, though originally a tartan did not have to be made up of any pattern at all, as late as the 1830s tartan was sometimes described as plain coloured. Patterned cloth from the Gaelic-speaking Scottish Highlands was called breacan, meaning many colours, over time the meanings of tartan and breacan were combined to describe certain type of pattern on a certain type of cloth. The pattern of a tartan is called a sett, the sett is made up of a series of woven threads which cross at right angles. Today tartan is used to describe the pattern, not limited to textiles. In North America the term plaid is commonly used to describe tartan, the word plaid, derived from the Scottish Gaelic plaide, meaning blanket, was first used of any rectangular garment, sometimes made up of tartan, particularly that which preceded the modern kilt. In time, plaid was used to describe blankets themselves, each thread in the warp crosses each thread in the weft at right angles. Thus, a set of two base colours produces three different colours including one mixture and this means that the more stripes and colours used, the more blurred and subdued the tartans pattern becomes. The sequence of threads, known as the sett, starts at an edge, in diagram A, the sett reverses at the first pivot, then repeats, then reverses at the next pivot, and will carry on in this manner horizontally
Media related to Flannel at Wikimedia Commons
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