Warp and weft
Warp and weft are the two basic components used in weaving to turn thread or yarn into fabric. The lengthwise or longitudinal warp yarns are held stationary in tension on a frame or loom while the transverse weft is drawn through and inserted over-and-under the warp. A single thread of the weft crossing the warp is called a pick. Terms vary; each individual warp thread in a fabric is called end. Inventions during the 18th century spurred the Industrial Revolution, with the "picking stick" and the "flying shuttle" speeding up production of cloth; the power loom patented by Edmund Cartwright in 1785 allowed sixty picks per minute. The words warp and weft derive from the Old English word wefan, to weave. Warp means "that, thrown away"; the warp is the set of yarns or other elements stretched in place on a loom before the weft is introduced during the weaving process. It is regarded as the longitudinal set in a finished fabric with two or more sets of elements; the term is used for a set of yarns established before the interworking of weft yarns by some other method, such as finger manipulation, yielding wrapped or twined structures.
Simple looms use a spiral warp, in which the warp is made up of a single long yarn wound in a spiral pattern around a pair of sticks or beams. The warp must be strong to be held under high tension during the weaving process, unlike the weft which carries no tension; this requires the yarn used for warp ends, or individual warp threads, to be made of spun and plied fibre. Traditionally wool, linen and silk were used. However, improvements in spinning technology during the Industrial Revolution created cotton yarn of sufficient strength to be used in mechanized weaving. Artificial or man-made fibres such as nylon or rayon were employed. While most weaving is weft-faced, warp-faced textiles are created using densely arranged warp threads. In these the design is in the warp, requiring all colors to be decided upon and placed during the first part of the weaving process, which cannot be changed; such limitations of color placement create weavings defined by length-wise stripes and vertical designs.
Many South American cultures, including the ancient Incas and Aymaras, employed backstrap weaving, which uses the weight of the weaver's body to control the tension of the loom. Because the weft does not have to be stretched on a loom the way the warp is it can be less strong, it is made of spun fibre wool and cotton, today of synthetic fiber such as nylon or rayon. The weft is threaded through the warp using a "shuttle", air jets or "rapier grippers". Hand looms were the original weaver's tool, with the shuttle being threaded through alternately raised warps by hand; the expression "warp and weft" is used metaphorically. Warp and weft are sometimes used more in literature to describe the basic dichotomy of the world we live in, as in, up/down, in/out, black/white, Sun/Moon yin/yang, etc; the expression is used for the underlying structure upon which something is built. The terms "warp" and "woof" are found in some English translations of the Bible in the discussion of mildews found in cloth materials in Leviticus 13:48-59.
In Guru Granth Sahib many shabads in Gurbani use the metaphor of warp and weft to describe the state where our soul imbibes into the Almighty as a fabric. Weft is a hairdressing term for temporary hair extensions; these can be attached to a person's hair variously by cornrow braiding, using metal cylinders or gluing. The result is called a weave. Knot density Pile Warp knitting Barber, E. J. W.. Prehistoric Textiles. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00224-X. Burnham, Dorothy K.. Warp and Weft: A Textile Terminology. Royal Ontario Museum. ISBN 0-88854-256-9
Pirn
A pirn is a rod onto which weft thread is wound for use in weaving. Unlike a bobbin, it is fixed in place, the thread is delivered off the end of the pirn rather than from the centre. A typical pirn is made of wood or plastic and is tapered for most of its length, flaring out more at the base, which fits over a pin in the shuttle. Pirns are wound from the base forward in order to ensure snag-free delivery of the thread, unlike bobbins, which are wound evenly from end to end. Pirns became important with the development of the flying shuttle, though they are used with other end delivery shuttles. Power looms which use pirns have automatic changing mechanisms which remove the spent pirn from the shuttle and replaces it with a fresh one, thus allowing for uninterrupted weaving. Examples from a hand-weaving manufacturer
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads; the precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary. The word "loom" is derived from the Old English geloma, formed from ge- and loma, a root of unknown origin. In 1404 it was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth. By 1838, it had gained the meaning of a machine for interlacing thread. Weaving is done by intersecting the longitudinal threads, the warp, i.e. "that, thrown across", with the transverse threads, the weft, i.e. "that, woven". The major components of the loom are the warp beam, harnesses or shafts, shuttle and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking and taking-up operations; these are the principal motions. Shedding. Shedding is the raising of part of the warp yarn to form a shed, through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted, forming the weft.
On the modern loom and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called healds, are attached; the yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are a Jacquard Head. Picking; as the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle; the shuttle is pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle; the filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick; as the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.
Battening. Between the heddles and the takeup roll, the warp threads pass through another frame called the reed; the portion of the fabric, formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell. After the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, the weaver uses the reed to press each filling yarn against the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 160 picks per minute. There are two secondary motions, because with each weaving operation the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam; this process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be released from the warp beams. To become automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion, the filling stop motion; this will brake the loom. An automatic loom requires 0.125 hp to 0.5 hp to operate. The back strap loom is a simple loom, it consists of two bars between which the warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object and the other to the weaver by means of a strap around the back.
The weaver uses their body weight to tension the loom. On traditional looms, the two main sheds are operated by means of a shed roll over which one set of warps pass, continuous string heddles which encase each of the warps in the other set. To open the shed controlled by the string heddles, the weaver relaxes tension on the warps and raises the heddles; the other shed is opened by drawing the shed roll toward the weaver. Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on this loom. Width is limited to. Warp faced textiles decorated with intricate pick-up patterns woven in complementary and supplementary warp techniques are woven by indigenous peoples today around the world, they produce such things as belts, bags and carrying cloths. Supplementary weft patterning and brocading is practiced in many regions. Balanced weaves are possible on the backstrap loom. Today, commercially produced backstrap loom kits include a rigid heddle; the warp-weighted loom is a vertical loom. The earliest evidence of warp-weighted looms comes from sites belonging to the Starčevo culture in modern Serbia and Hungary and from late Neolithic sites in Switzerland.
This loom was used in Ancient Greece, spread north and west throughout Europe thereafter. Its defining characteristic is hanging weights. Extra warp thread is wound around the weights; when a weaver has reached the bottom of the available warp, the completed section can be rolled around the top beam, additional lengths of warp threads can be unwound from the weights to continue. This frees the weaver from vertical size constraint. A drawloom is a hand-loom for weaving figured cloth. In a drawloom, a "figure harness" is used to control each warp thread separately. A drawloom requires two operators, the weaver and an assistant called a "drawboy" to manage the figure harness; the earliest confirmed drawloom fabrics come from the State of Chu and date c. 400 BC. Most scholars attribute the invention of the dra
Heddle
A heddle is an integral part of a loom. Each thread in the warp passes through a heddle, used to separate the warp threads for the passage of the weft; the typical heddle is made of cord or wire, is suspended on a shaft of a loom. Each heddle has an eye in the center; as there is one heddle for each thread of the warp, there can be near a thousand heddles used for fine or wide warps. A handwoven tea-towel will have between 300 and 400 warp threads, thus use that many heddles. In weaving, the warp threads are moved down by the shaft; this is achieved. When the shaft is raised the heddles are too, thus the warp threads threaded through the heddles are raised. Heddles can be either or unequally distributed on the shafts, depending on the pattern to be woven. In a plain weave or twill, for example, the heddles are distributed; the warp is threaded through heddles on different shafts in order to obtain different weave structures. For a plain weave on a loom with two shafts, for example, the first thread would go through the first heddle on the first shaft, the next thread through the first heddle on the second shaft.
The third warp thread would be threaded through the second heddle on the first shaft, so on. In this manner the heddles allow for the grouping of the warp threads into two groups, one group, threaded through heddles on the first shaft, the other on the second shaft. While the majority of heddles are as described, this style of heddle has derived from older styles, several of which are still in use. Rigid heddle looms, for example, instead of having one heddle for each thread, have a shaft with the'heddles' fixed, all threads go through every shaft. Within wire heddles there is a large variety in quality. Heddles should have a smooth eye, with no sharp edges to either fray the warp; the warp must be able to slide through the heddle without impairment. The heddle should be light and not bulky. There are three common types of metal heddles: wire, inserted eye, flat steel; the inserted eye are considered to be the best, as they have a smooth eye with no rough ends to catch the warp. Wire heddles are second in quality, followed by the flat steel.
Wire heddles look much like the inserted eye heddles, but where in the inserted eye there is a circle of metal for the eye, the wire ones are twisted at the top and bottom. The flat metal heddles are considered the poorest in quality as they are heavier and bulkier, as well as not being as smooth, they are a flat piece of steel, with the ends rotated so that the flat side is at an angle of 45 degrees to the shaft. The eye is a hole cut in the middle of the piece of metal. Traditional heddles were made of cord. However, cord deteriorates with time and creates friction between the warp and the heddle that can damage the warp. Today, traditional cord heddles are used by historical reenactors. A simple string heddle can be made with a series of five knots in a doubled length of cord, which creates five loops. Of these loops, the important ones are the loop in the center; the loops on the ends are used to stretch the heddle between the top and bottom bars of a shaft and are just large enough for the heddle to slide along the shaft.
The center loop is the eye through which a warp thread is passed and is placed in the center of the heddle. String heddles can be crocheted, come in many different forms; some modern hand weavers use machine-crocheted polyester heddles. These synthetic heddles minimize some of the problems with traditional knotted string heddles, they are used as an alternative to metal heddles to lessen the weight of the shafts. Inkle loom heddles are made of string and consist of a simple loop. Alternating warp threads pass through a heddle, as in a rigid heddle loom. Tapestry loom heddles are made of string, they consist of a loop of string with an eye at one end for the warp thread and a loop at the other for attaching to a heddle bar. A repair heddle can be used if a heddle breaks, rare, or when the loom has been warped incorrectly. If the weaver finds a mistake in the pattern, instead of rethreading all of the threads, a repair heddle can be slipped onto the shaft in the correct location, thus repair heddles have a method to open the top loop that holds them onto the shaft.
Repair heddles can save a lot of time in fixing a mistake, however they are bulky, in general, catch on the other heddles. In rigid heddle looms there is a single shaft, with the heddles fixed in place in the shaft; the warp threads pass alternately through a heddle and through a space between the heddles, so that raising the shaft will raise half the threads, lowering the shaft will lower the same threads—the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place. Rigid heddles are thus different from the heddle in common use, though the single heddle derived from the rigid heddle; the advantage of non-rigid heddles is that the weaver has more freedom, can create a wider variety of fabrics. Rigid heddle looms resemble the standard floor loom in appearance. Single and double heddle looms are a type of rigid heddle loom, in that the heddles are all together. Heddles are suspended above the loom; the weaver operates them by works while seated. Among hand woven African textiles, single-heddle looms are in wide use among weaving regions of Africa.
Mounting position varies according to local custom. Double-heddle looms are used in West Africa, Ethiopia and in Madagascar for the production of lamba cloth.. "Heddle". New Internati
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated d/b/a OCLC is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services. OCLC maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system. OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of university presidents, vice presidents, library directors who wanted to create a cooperative computerized network for libraries in the state of Ohio; the group first met on July 5, 1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization, hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, to design the shared cataloging system.
Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, increase efficiency in library management, bringing libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the world's information in order to best serve researchers and scholars; the first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data. Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
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It offers the bibliographic discovery system WorldCat Discovery, which allows for library patrons to use a single search interface to access an institution's catalog, database subscriptions and more. OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications; these publications, including journal articles, reports and presentations, are available through the organization's website. OCLC Publications – Research articles from various journals including Code4Lib Journal, OCLC Research, Reference & User Services Quarterly, College & Research Libraries News, Art Libraries Journal, National Education Association Newsletter; the most recent publications are displayed first, all archived resources, starting in 1970, are available. Membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding. Newsletters – Current and archived newsletters for the library and archive community.
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Lampas
Lampas is a type of luxury fabric with a background weft in taffeta with supplementary wefts laid on top and forming a design, sometimes with a "brocading weft". Lampas is woven in silk, has gold and silver thread enrichment. Lampas weaves were developed around 1000 CE. Beginning late in the 17th century western lampas production began centered in Lyon, where an industry of providing for French and other European courts became centered. Abbott, James A. A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin. Boscobel Restoration Inc.: 1995. ISBN 0-9646659-0-5. Colenman and Dan Mayers. Scalamandre: Luxurious Home Interiors. Gibbs Smith: 2004. ISBN 978-1-58685-408-9. Jenkins, David; the Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Cambridge University Press: 2003. ISBN 978-0-521-34107-3
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster; the full name of the house is the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Owing to shortage of space, its office accommodation extends into Portcullis House; the Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved; the House of Commons of England started to evolve in 14th centuries. It became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland in 1707, assumed the title of "House of Commons of Great Britain and Ireland" after the political union with Ireland at the start of the 19th century; the "United Kingdom" referred to was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1800, became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922.
Accordingly, the House of Commons assumed its current title. Under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power; the Government is responsible to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister stays in office only as long as she or he retains the confidence of a majority of the Commons. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance. By convention, the prime minister is answerable to, must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Thus, whenever the office of prime minister falls vacant, the Sovereign appoints the person who has the support of the House, or, most to command the support of the House—normally the leader of the largest party in the Commons, while the leader of the second-largest party becomes the Leader of the Opposition. Since 1963, by convention, the prime minister is always a member of the House of Commons, rather than the House of Lords.
The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence. Confidence and no confidence motions are phrased explicitly, for instance: "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government." Many other motions were until recent decades considered confidence issues though not explicitly phrased as such: in particular, important bills that were part of the Government's agenda. The annual Budget is still considered a matter of confidence; when a Government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons, the prime minister is obliged either to resign, making way for another MP who can command confidence, or to request the monarch to dissolve Parliament, thereby precipitating a general election. Parliament sits for a maximum term of five years. Subject to that limit, the prime minister could choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament, with the permission of the Monarch. However, since the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, terms are now a fixed five years, an early general election is brought about by a two-thirds majority in favour of a motion for a dissolution, or by a vote of no confidence, not followed within fourteen days by a vote of confidence.
By this second mechanism, the UK's government can change its political composition without an intervening general election. Only four of the eight last Prime Ministers have attained office as the immediate result of a general election; the latter four were Jim Callaghan, John Major, Gordon Brown and the current Prime Minister Theresa May. In such circumstances there may not have been an internal party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim, having no electoral rival. A prime minister will resign after party defeat at an election if unable to lead a coalition, or obtain a confidence and supply arrangement, she or he may resign after a motion of no confidence or for health reasons. In such cases, the premiership goes to, it has become the practice to write the constitution of major UK political parties to provide a set way in which to appoint a new leader. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no fixed mechanism for this, it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the consensus of cabinet ministers.
By convention, ministers are members of the House of House of Lords. A handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they entered Parliament in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Exceptions include Peter Mandelson, appointed Secretary of State for Business and Regulatory Reform in October 2008 before his peerage. Since 1902, all prime ministers have been members of the Commons; the new session of Parliament was delayed to await the outcome of his by-election, which happened