1.
British Isles
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The British Isles are a group of islands off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. Situated in the North Atlantic, the islands have an area of approximately 315,159 km2. Two sovereign states are located on the islands, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the oldest rocks in the group are in the north west of Scotland, Ireland and North Wales and are 2,700 million years old. During the Silurian period the north-western regions collided with the south-east, the topography of the islands is modest in scale by global standards. Ben Nevis rises to an elevation of only 1,344 metres, and Lough Neagh, the climate is temperate marine, with mild winters and warm summers. The North Atlantic Drift brings significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C above the average for the latitude. This led to a landscape which was dominated by temperate rainforest. The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, Ireland, which became an island by 12,000 BC, was not inhabited until after 8000 BC. Great Britain became an island by 5600 BC, Hiberni, Pictish and Britons tribes, all speaking Insular Celtic, inhabited the islands at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. Much of Brittonic-controlled Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire from AD43, the first Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century and eventually dominated the bulk of what is now England. Viking invasions began in the 9th century, followed by permanent settlements. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence, the term British Isles is controversial in Ireland, where there are objections to its usage due to the association of the word British with Ireland. The Government of Ireland does not recognise or use the term, as a result, Britain and Ireland is used as an alternative description, and Atlantic Archipelago has had limited use among a minority in academia, while British Isles is still commonly employed. Within them, they are sometimes referred to as these islands. The earliest known references to the islands as a group appeared in the writings of sea-farers from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia. The original records have been lost, however, later writings, e. g. Avienuss Ora maritima, in the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus has Prettanikē nēsos, the British Island, and Prettanoi, the Britons. Strabo used Βρεττανική, and Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, historians today, though not in absolute agreement, largely agree that these Greek and Latin names were probably drawn from native Celtic-language names for the archipelago. Along these lines, the inhabitants of the islands were called the Πρεττανοί, the shift from the P of Pretannia to the B of Britannia by the Romans occurred during the time of Julius Caesar
2.
Moon type
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The Moon System of Embossed Reading is a writing system for the blind, using embossed symbols mostly derived from the Latin script. Moon type was developed by Dr. William Moon, a blind Englishman living in Brighton, after a bout of scarlet fever, Moon lost his sight at age 21 and became a teacher of blind children. He discovered that his pupils had great difficulty learning to read the existing styles of embossed reading codes, Moon first formulated his ideas in 1843 and published the scheme in 1845. Moon is not as known as Braille, but it is a valuable alternative touch reading scheme for the blind or partially sighted people of any age. Rather than the dots of braille type, Moon type is made up of raised curves, angles and it has also proved successful as a mode of literacy for children with additional physical and/or learning difficulties. Moon books for fluent readers can be borrowed from the RNIB National Library Service, English Christian missionaries in Ningbo, China, during the Qing dynasty used Moon type to teach blind locals how to read Ningbo. Missionaries who spoke the Ningbo dialect ran the Home for Indigent Old People where most of the inmates were blind, in 1874, an English missionary taught a young blind man to read romanised Ningbo written in Moon type. The Gospel of Luke was then transcribed into two volumes of Moon type. A Swiss missionary placed notices on placards throughout Ningbo stating that he would give food, the Gospel of Mark was transcribed into Moon type using romanized Mandarin, however, without the tone marks. Missionary Hudson Taylor, who had been involved with the transcription of the gospels, however, the romanised Ningpo vernacular has never used tone marks. Since, when singing hymns, tones are important and they were able to read the romanised books due to a good understanding of Ningbo. Similarly, tone marks were not used in the point system used at Hankou. This article incorporates text from The Chinese Times, a publication from 1889 now in the domain in the United States
3.
Paper
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Paper is a thin material produced by pressing together moist fibres of cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets. It is a material with many uses, including writing, printing, packaging, cleaning. The modern pulp and paper industry is global, with China leading its production, the oldest known archaeological fragments of the immediate precursor to modern paper, date to the 2nd century BC in China. The pulp papermaking process is ascribed to Cai Lun, a 2nd-century AD Han court eunuch, with paper as an effective substitute for silk in many applications, China could export silk in greater quantity, contributing to a Golden Age. Because of papers introduction to the West through the city of Baghdad, in the 19th century, industrial manufacture greatly lowered its cost, enabling mass exchange of information and contributing to significant cultural shifts. In 1844, the Canadian inventor Charles Fenerty and the German F. G. Keller independently developed processes for pulping wood fibres, before the industrialisation of the paper production the most common fibre source was recycled fibres from used textiles, called rags. The rags were from hemp, linen and cotton, a process for removing printing inks from recycled paper was invented by German jurist Justus Claproth in 1774. Today this method is called deinking and it was not until the introduction of wood pulp in 1843 that paper production was not dependent on recycled materials from ragpickers. The word paper is etymologically derived from Latin papyrus, which comes from the Greek πάπυρος, although the word paper is etymologically derived from papyrus, the two are produced very differently and the development of the first is distinct from the development of the second. Papyrus is a lamination of natural plant fibres, while paper is manufactured from fibres whose properties have changed by maceration. To make pulp from wood, a chemical pulping process separates lignin from cellulose fibres and this is accomplished by dissolving lignin in a cooking liquor, so that it may be washed from the cellulose, this preserves the length of the cellulose fibres. Paper made from chemical pulps are also known as wood-free papers–not to be confused with paper, this is because they do not contain lignin. The pulp can also be bleached to produce paper, but this consumes 5% of the fibres, chemical pulping processes are not used to make paper made from cotton. There are three main chemical pulping processes, the process dates back to the 1840s and it was the dominant method extent before the second world war. Most pulping operations using the process are net contributors to the electricity grid or use the electricity to run an adjacent paper mill. Another advantage is that this process recovers and reuses all inorganic chemical reagents, soda pulping is another specialty process used to pulp straws, bagasse and hardwoods with high silicate content. There are two major mechanical pulps, thermomechanical pulp and groundwood pulp, in the TMP process, wood is chipped and then fed into steam heated refiners, where the chips are squeezed and converted to fibres between two steel discs. In the groundwood process, debarked logs are fed into grinders where they are pressed against rotating stones to be made into fibres
4.
Tissue paper
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Tissue paper or simply tissue is a lightweight paper or, light crêpe paper. Tissue can be made from recycled paper pulp, key properties are absorbency, basis weight, thickness, bulk, brightness, stretch, appearance and comfort. Tissue paper is produced on a machine that has a single large steam heated drying cylinder fitted with a hot air hood. The raw material is paper pulp, the yankee cylinder is sprayed with adhesives to make the paper stick. Creping is done by the doctor blade that is scraping the dry paper off the cylinder surface. The crinkle is controlled by the strength of the adhesive, geometry of the doctor blade, the highest water absorbing applications are produced with a through air drying process. These papers contain high amounts of NBSK and CTMP and this gives a bulky paper with high wet tensile strength and good water holding capacity. The TAD process uses about twice the energy compared with drying of paper. The properties are controlled by pulp quality, crêping and additives, the wet strength is often an important parameter for tissue paper. Hygienic tissue paper is used for facial tissue, napkins, bathroom tissue. Paper has been used for purposes for centuries, but tissue paper as we know it today was not produced in the United States before the mid-1940s. In Western Europe large scale production started in the beginning of the 1960s. Facial tissue refers to a class of soft, absorbent, disposable paper that is suitable for use on the face, the first tissue handkerchiefs were introduced in the 1920s. They have been refined over the years, especially for softness and strength, the importance of the paper tissue on minimising the spread of an infection has been highlighted in light of fears over a swine flu epidemic. In the UK, for example, the Government ran a campaign called “Catch it, bin it, kill it”, Paper towels are the second largest application for tissue paper in the consumer sector. This type of paper has usually a basis weight of 20 to 24 g/m2, normally such paper towels are two-ply. This kind of tissue can be made from 100% chemical pulp to 100% recycled fibre or a combination of the two, normally, some long fibre chemical pulp is included to improve strength. Wrapping Tissue is a type of thin, translucent tissue paper used for wrapping/packing various articles & cushioning fragile items, rolls of toilet paper have been available since the end of the 19th century
5.
Notary public
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Any such act is known as a notarization. The term notary public only refers to common-law notaries and should not be confused with civil-law notaries, Notaries are appointed by a government authority, such as a court or lieutenant governor, or by a regulating body often known as a society or faculty of notaries public. For lawyer notaries, an appointment may be for life, while lay notaries are usually commissioned for a briefer term, in most common law countries, appointments and their number for a given notarial district are highly regulated. To these documents a notary affixes a notarial certificate which attests to the execution of the document, usually by the person who appears before the notary, originals or secondary originals are then filed and stored in the notarys archives, or protocol. Notaries are generally required to undergo training in the performance of their duties. Some must also first serve as an apprentice before being commissioned or licensed to practice their profession, however, notaries public in the U. S. Notarial practice is universally considered to be distinct and separate from that of an attorney. In England and Wales, there is a course of study for notaries which is conducted under the auspices of the University of Cambridge and the Society of Notaries of England and Wales. In bi-juridical jurisdictions, such as South Africa or Louisiana, the office of notary public is a profession with educational requirements similar to those for attorneys. Many even have institutes of learning that offer degrees in notarial law. Therefore, despite their name, notaries public in these jurisdictions are in civil law notaries. Notaries public hold an office which can trace its origins back to the ancient Roman Republic, the history of notaries is set out in detail in Chapter 1 of Brookes Notary, The office of a public notary is a public office. It has a long and distinguished history, the office has its origin in the civil institutions of ancient Rome. A writer who adopted the new method was called a notarius, originally, a notary was one who took down statements in shorthand using these notes, and wrote them out in the form of memoranda or minutes. Later, the title notarius was applied almost exclusively to registrars attached to government officials, including provincial governors. Notwithstanding the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century AD, the separate development of the common law in England, free from most of the influences of Roman law, meant that notaries were not introduced into England until later in the 13th and 14th centuries. At first, notaries in England were appointed by the Papal Legate, in 1279 the Archbishop of Canterbury was authorized by the Pope to appoint notaries. Not surprisingly, in early days, many of the notaries were members of the clergy. The Reformation produced no change in the position and functions of notaries in England
6.
Birth certificate
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A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a child. The term birth certificate can refer to either the document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth. Depending on the jurisdiction, a record of birth might or might not contain verification of the event by such as a midwife or doctor, the documentation of births is a practice widely held throughout human civilization, especially in China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Persia. The original purpose of statistics was for tax purposes and for the determination of available military manpower. Births were initially registered with churches, who maintained registers of births and this practice continued into the 19th century. The compulsory registration of births with governmental agencies is a practice originated in the United Kingdom in 1853. The United States did not get a system until 1902. Most countries have statutes and laws that regulate the registration of births, the actual record of birth is stored with a government agency. That agency will issue certified copies or representations of the birth record upon request. The certification is signed and/or sealed by the registrar or other custodian of birth records, despite 191 countries ratifying the Convention, the births of millions of children worldwide go unregistered. This phenomenon disproportionately impacts indigenous populations and even in developed countries, contributes to difficulties in fully accessing civic rights. Retrospective registration may be necessary where there is a backlog of children whose births have gone unregistered, in Senegal, the government is facilitating retrospective registration through free local court hearings and the number of unregistered children has fallen considerably as a result. In Sierra Leone, the government gave the National Office of Births and Deaths special permission to issue birth certificates to children over seven, in Bolivia, there was a successful three-year amnesty for the free registration of young people aged between 12 and 18. Statelessness, or the lack of nationality, impacts the daily lives of some 11-12 million people around the world. Perhaps those who suffer most are stateless infants, children, though born and raised in their parents’ country of habitual residence, they lack formal recognition of their existence. States and territories of Australia are responsible for the issuance of certificates, through agencies generally titled Registry of Births Deaths. Initially registering a birth is done by a hospital through a Birth Registration Statement or similar, home births are permitted, but a statement is required from a registered midwife, doctor or 2 other witnesses other than the parents. Unplanned births require in some states that the baby be taken to a hospital within 24 hours, once registered, a separate application can be made for a birth certificate, generally at a cost
7.
Photocopier
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A photocopier is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Heat, pressure or a combination of both is used to fuse the toner onto the paper. Earlier versions included the Gestetner stencil duplicator, invented by David Gestetner in 1881, xerographic office photocopying was introduced by Xerox in 1959, and it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax, Photostat, carbon paper, mimeograph machines, and other duplicating machines. Photocopying is widely used in the business, education, and government sectors, in the 2010s, there is a convergence in some high-end machines between the roles of a photocopier, a fax machine, a scanner, and a computer network-connected printer into a multi-function printer. As of 2015, some machines can copy and print in color. Chester Carlson, the inventor of photocopying, was originally a patent attorney, as well as a part-time researcher and his job at the patent office in New York required him to make a large number of copies of important papers. Carlson, who was arthritic, found this to be a painful and this motivated him to conduct experiments with photo conductivity. Carlson used his kitchen for his experiments, and, in 1938. He made the first photocopy using a plate covered with sulfur. The words 10-22-38 Astoria were written on a slide, which was placed on top of more sulfur. After the slide was removed, an image of the words remained. Carlson tried to sell his invention to some companies, but failed because the process was still underdeveloped, between 1939 and 1944, Carlson was turned down by over 20 companies, including IBM and General Electric—neither of which believed there was a significant market for copiers. In 1944, the Battelle Memorial Institute, a organization in Columbus, Ohio. Over the next five years, the institute conducted experiments to improve the process of electrophotography, in 1947, Haloid Corporation approached Battelle to obtain a license to develop and market a copying machine based on this technology. Haloid felt that the word electrophotography was too complicated and did not have good recall value, Haloid called the new copier machines Xerox Machines and, in 1948, the word Xerox was trademarked. Haloid eventually changed its name to Xerox Corporation, in 1949, Xerox Corporation introduced the first xerographic copier called the Model A. Xerox became so successful that, in North America, photocopying came to be known as xeroxing. Xerox has actively fought to prevent Xerox from becoming a genericized trademark, some languages include hybrid terms, such as the widely used Polish term kserokopia, even though relatively few photocopiers are of the Xerox brand
8.
Revenue stamp
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Typically businesses purchase the stamps from the government, and attach them to taxed items as part of putting the items on sale, or in the case of documents, as part of filling out the form. Revenue stamps often look similar to postage stamps, and in some countries. Revenue stamps are used to collect taxes and fees. They are issued by governments, national and local, and by bodies of various kinds. They take many forms and may be gummed and ungummed, perforated or imperforate, printed or embossed, in many countries, they are as detailed in their design as much as banknotes, they are often made from the same type of paper. The high value of revenue stamps means that they may contain security devices to prevent counterfeiting. The Revenue Society has defined revenue stamps as, in the Ottoman empire, Damga resmi was already in use by the sixteenth century. Records of tax revenue from stamps for silk provide evidence of changes in production over time. The use of revenue stamps goes back further than that of postage stamps, Revenue stamps have become less commonly seen in the 21st century, with the rise of computerization and the ability to use numbers to track payments accurately. There are a great many kinds of revenue stamps in the world, both national and local entities have issued them. Governments have sometimes combined the functions of postage and revenue stamps, in the former British Empire, such stamps were often inscribed Postage and Revenue to reflect their dual function. Other countries have simply allowed revenue stamps to be used for postage or vice versa, a revenue stamp authorized subsequently for postal use is known as a postal fiscal. Bhutan, for instance, authorized the use of stamps for postal purposes from 1955 until the first proper postage stamps of the country were issued in 1962. In the Stanley Gibbons catalog, this type of stamp has an F prefix, while revenue stamps often resemble postage stamps, they are not normally intended for use on mail and therefore do not receive a postal cancellation. Some countries such as Great Britain have issued stamps valid for postage and revenue, but this practice is now rare. Many different methods have used to cancel revenue stamps, including pen cancels, inked handstamps, perforating, embossing. From around 1900, United States revenue stamps were required to be mutilated by cutting, after being affixed to documents, a class of office equipment was created to achieve this which became known as stamp mutilators. Revenue stamps were widely collected by philatelists and given the same status as postage stamps in stamp catalogues
9.
Postage stamp
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Postage stamp may also refer to a formatting artifact in the display of film or video, Windowbox. A postage stamp is a piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are printed on special paper, show a national designation and a denomination on the front. They are sometimes a source of net profit to the issuing agency, stamps are usually rectangular, but triangles or other shapes are occasionally used. The stamp is affixed to an envelope or other postal cover the customer wishes to send, the item is then processed by the postal system, where a postmark, sometimes known as a cancellation mark, is usually applied in overlapping manner to stamp and cover. This procedure marks the stamp as used to prevent its reuse, in modern usage, postmarks generally indicate the date and point of origin of the mailing. The mailed item is delivered to the address the customer has applied to the envelope or parcel. Postage stamps have facilitated the delivery of mail since the 1840s, before then, ink and hand-stamps, usually made from wood or cork, were often used to frank the mail and confirm the payment of postage. The first adhesive postage stamp, commonly referred to as the Penny Black, was issued in the United Kingdom in 1840, there are varying accounts of the inventor or inventors of the stamp. The postage stamp resolved this issue in a simple and elegant manner, concurrently with the first stamps, the UK offered wrappers for mail. S. Postal service for priority or express mailing, the postage stamp afforded convenience for both the mailer and postal officials, more effectively recovered costs for the postal service, and ultimately resulted in a better, faster postal system. With the conveniences stamps offered, their use resulted in greatly increased mailings during the 19th and 20th centuries, as postage stamps with their engraved imagery began to appear on a widespread basis, historians and collectors began to take notice. The study of stamps and their use is referred to as philately. Stamp collecting can be both a hobby and a form of study and reference, as government-issued postage stamps. The postage for the item was prepaid by the use of a hand-stamp to frank the mailed item. Though this stamp was applied to a letter instead of a piece of paper it is considered by many historians as the worlds first postage stamp. Rowland Hill The Englishman Sir Rowland Hill began interest in postal reform in 1835, in 1836, a Member of Parliament, Robert Wallace, provided Hill with numerous books and documents, which Hill described as a half hundred weight of material. Hill commenced a study of these documents, leading him to the 1837 publication of a pamphlet entitled Post Office Reform its Importance
10.
Letter sheet
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In philatelic terminology a letter sheet, often written lettersheet, is an item of postal stationery issued by a postal authority. It is a sheet of paper that can be folded, usually sealed, the term lettersheet has been used to describe the unstamped folded sheet letters used before envelopes became popular. Most countrys postal authorities have issued true lettersheets at some stage, however, most have discontinued their use, except in the form of an aerogram, due to the popularity of envelopes. The first postal stationery issued by a government is thought to be the AQ lettersheet issued in 1608. In 1790 Luxembourg produced a 25-centime lettersheet, during this period envelopes were rarely used. New South Wales issued prepaid lettersheets in 1838 with uninked embossed stamps to prepay postage within the town of Sydney. Prepaid lettersheets were introduced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, rowland Hill expected the lettersheets to be more popular than the postage stamps but the postage stamp prevailed. Many caricatures were produced by manufacturers whose livelihood was threatened by the new lettersheet. Only six days after their introduction, on May 12, Hill wrote in his journal, during the American Civil War, in August 1861, two different size lettersheets were issued by the United States which both had the same three cents imprinted stamp design. The suggested use, though practical, did not materialize and they were withdrawn from sales in April 1864, despite the abortive attempt to popularize lettersheets in 1861, two cent lettersheets with a picture of President Ulysses Grant were issued on August 18,1886. They were last produced in 1894, but slow sales of lettersheets continued until 1902, the US has not produced any since, other than air letter sheets or aerograms which became available in 1947 and were likewise discontinued in 2006. Privately produced pictorial lettersheets were published by several stationers in New York City and these lettersheets were popular because of their 8.5 ×21 inch size that could be folded in half, providing four pages for writing but the Post Office regarded them as one sheet of paper. Special stationery on thin sheets of paper, called Air Letter Cards were available in Iraq as early as 1933, the sheets were folded to the size of the blue border, and gummed flaps were used to seal the sheet. He personally copyrighted the product in February 1933 and it was used first in Iraq, in early 1941 the United Kingdom introduced thin, lightweight forms intended for use by their overseas military forces. Known as air letter sheets, they took up less space than regular letters. Allied POW communications through the Red Cross used a special lettersheet inscribed Prisoner of War Air Mail in English, the Forces air lettersheets were rated at 3d while the civilian version was imprinted with a 6d stamp. Several other countries adapted the British lettersheet model during the war, curiously, the British 6d air letter rate remained in effect until 1966 while other postal rates increased. Some German POW and concentration camps issued their own special lettersheets for use by the inmates, towards the end of WWII, at least eight forged German Feldpost lettersheets were printed by the OSS Operation Cornflakes to undermine Axis morale during late 1944 and 1945
11.
Stamped envelope
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A stamped envelope or postal stationery envelope is an envelope with a printed or embossed indicium indicating the prepayment of postage. It is a form of postal stationery, the Sherborn Collection in the British Library Philatelic Collections is an important collection of 1841-85 Queen Victoria embossed 1d pink stamped envelopes. The collection was formed by C. Davis Sherborn and donated to the British Museum in 1913, in August 1852 an act of the U. S. Congress authorized the Postmaster General to provide suitable letter envelopes with such watermarks or other guards against counterfeits. With the addition of the value or denomination of the stamps so printed or impressed thereon. The first result was the 1853 Nesbitt issues of stamped envelopes, when you combine the different envelope sizes, knives, colors, dies to print the indicia, and denominations there are literally thousands of different stamped envelopes produced for the U. S. Collectors of stamped envelopes use a catalog to know what has been issued, siegfried Ascher was the first to try to comprehensively document all countries postal stationery including stamped envelopes. This was followed some 40 years later by the Higgins & Gage World Postal Stationery Catalog, though now out of date, it is still frequently cited since it covers all countries and no other comprehensive catalog has been attempted since. The H&G catalog, as it is known, describes stamped envelopes by the envelope size, the United Postal Stationery Society has two published books cataloging U. S. stamped envelopes. These books describe all of the stated criteria plus the envelope knife making them the most complete U. S. stamped envelope catalogs. Most stamped envelopes are collected as entires, in the 19th century the practice was to collect cut squares which involved cutting the embossed indicia from a postal envelope. As a result, one cannot tell from a cut square what specific envelope it came from and, many times, the manner in which the stamped envelope is cut before folding vanishes on a cut square. The envelope size disappears, too, with a cut square, in collecting entires, a single indicium may appear on many different sizes of envelopes. Some countries have issued the same indicium on different paper types, laid, likewise it is common for the same indicium to be embossed onto paper of several different colors. Finally, two envelopes of the size can have a different flap size indicating that they were cut from a different knife. Rarely, a color, or displaced surcharge, or albino indicium, or inside-out folding of the envelope may appear. All of these relate to mint or unused envelopes. When you add a postmark from an envelope to the mix. What was formerly in fashion, collecting only mint examples, has changed because many collectors seem to find used PSE collections more interesting, some postal stationery envelopes contain a corner card, a printed return address on the envelope, usually in the upper left hand corner
12.
Indicia (philately)
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In philately, indicia are markings on a mail piece showing that postage has been prepaid by the sender. Indicia is the plural of the Latin word indicium, meaning distinguishing marks, the term imprinted stamp is used more or less interchangeably, but some indicia are not imprinted stamps. Indicia can take a number of forms, including printed designs or handstamps where a stamp would normally be that indicate the pre-payment of postage, imprinted stamps on postal stationery are indicia. The term also refers to a meter stamp impression or the part thereof that indicates the value or postal rate, Indicia Information Based Indicia Postmark Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science technical reports CMU-CS-96-113, Cryptographic Postage Indicia
13.
KwaZulu-Natal
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KwaZulu-Natal is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu and Natal Province were merged. It is located in the southeast of the country, enjoying a long shoreline beside the Indian Ocean and its capital is Pietermaritzburg and its largest city is Durban. It is the 2nd most populous province in South Africa, with fewer residents than Gauteng. Two areas in KwaZulu-Natal have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, at around 92,100 km2 in area, KwaZulu-Natal is roughly the size of Portugal. It has three different geographic areas, the areas largest river, the Tugela, flows west to east across the center of the province. The coastal regions typically have subtropical thickets and deeper ravines, steep slopes host some Afromontane Forest, the midlands have moist grasslands and isolated pockets of Afromontane Forest. The north has a primarily moist savanna habitat, whilst the Drakensberg region hosts mostly alpine grassland, the province contains rich areas of biodiversity of a range of flora and fauna. The iSimangaliso Wetland Park and the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, along with uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park and Ndumo, are wetlands of international importance for migratory species, and are designated as Ramsar sites. South Africa signed the 1971 Ramsar Convention to try to conserve and protect important wetlands because of their importance to habitats, the former Eastern Cape enclave of the town of Umzimkulu and its hinterland have been incorporated into KwaZulu-Natal following the 12th amendment of the Constitution of South Africa. The amendment also made changes to the southern border of the province. The northwesterly line of latitude and longitude traverses the province from the coast at Hibberdene to northeast Lesotho. KwaZulu-Natal has a varied yet verdant climate thanks to diverse, complex topography, generally, the coast is subtropical with inland regions becoming progressively colder. Temperature drops towards the hinterland, with Pietermaritzburg being similar in the summer, Ladysmith in the Tugela River Valley reaches 30 °C in the summer, but may drop below freezing point on winter evenings. The Drakensberg can experience heavy snow, with light snow occasionally experienced on the highest peaks in summer. The Zululand north coast has the warmest climate and highest humidity, one of these, eThekwini, is a metropolitan municipality and the other ten are district municipalities. The local seat of district municipality is given in parentheses. In 2012, the Ingonyama Trust owns 32% of the land in KwaZulu-Natal and this amounts to about three million hectares, occupied by over 4 million people. The Zulu king is the chairman of the Trust, the coastline is dotted with small towns, many of which serve as seasonal recreational hubs
14.
Gilding
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The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as gilt. Where metal is gilded, it was silver in the West, to make silver-gilt objects, but gilt-bronze is commonly used in China. Methods of gilding include hand application and glueing, chemical gilding, and electroplating, parcel-gilt objects are only gilded over part of their surfaces. This may mean that all of the inside, and none of the outside, of a chalice or similar vessel is gilded, herodotus mentions that the Egyptians gilded wood and metals, and many such objects have been excavated. Certain Ancient Greek statues of great prestige were chryselephantine, i. e. made of gold and ivory, extensive ornamental gilding was also used in the ceiling coffers of the Propylaea. But he adds that luxury advanced on them so rapidly that in very little time you see all, even private and poor people, gild the walls, vaults. Owing to the thickness of the gold leaf used in ancient gilding. Fire-gilding of metal goes back at least to the 4th century BC, in Europe, silver-gilt has always been more common than gilt-bronze, but in China the opposite has been the case. The ancient Chinese also developed the gilding of porcelain, which was taken up by the French. Modern gilding is applied to numerous and diverse surfaces and by various processes, mechanical gilding includes all the operations in which gold leaf is prepared, and the processes to mechanically attach the gold onto surfaces. The process is completed by cold burnishing, overlaying or folding or hammering on gold foil or gold leaf is the simplest and most ancient method, and is mentioned in Homers Odyssey and the Old Testament. The Ram in a Thicket of about 2600–2400 BCE from Ur uses this technique on wood, the next advances involved two simple processes. The first involves gold leaf, which is gold that is hammered or cut very thin sheets. If gilding on canvas or on wood, the surface was often first coated with gesso, gesso is a substance made of finely ground gypsum or chalk mixed with glue. Other gilding processes involved using the gold as pigment in paint, then the gold was applied in the same way as with any paint. Sometimes, after either gold-leafing or gold-painting, the artist would heat the piece enough to melt the gold slightly and these techniques remained the only alternatives for materials like wood, leather, and the vellum pages of illuminated manuscripts. Chemical gilding embraces those processes in which the gold is at some stage of chemical combination and these include, In this process the gold is obtained in a state of extremely fine division, and applied by mechanical means
15.
Relief
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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise, to create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a surface of stone or wood is a lowering of the field. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the form from the field. There is also sunk relief, which was restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only used to discuss most work. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, works in the technique are described as in relief, and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is a relief. Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of settings. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with figures and very active poses, such as battles. Most ancient architectural reliefs were painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. Rock reliefs are carved into solid rock in the open air. This type is found in cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a standing stone, many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are often combined in a single work. In particular, most later high reliefs contain sections in low relief, a low relief or bas-relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. Other versions distort depth much less and it is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required
16.
Slate and stylus
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The slate and stylus are tools used by blind persons to write text that they can read without assistance. Prior methods of making raised printing for the blind required a movable type printing press, the basic design of the slate consists of two pieces of metal, plastic or wood fastened together with a hinge at one side. The back part of the slate is solid with slight depressions spaced in braille cells of six dots each, the depressions are approximately.75 mm deep and about 1.5 mm in diameter. The horizontal and vertical spacing between dots within a cell is approximately 2.5 mm, while the distance between adjacent cells is about 4 mm, the front of the slate consists of rectangular windows that fit over the braille cells in the back. The inner rim of each window is provided with six indentations, there are pins or posts in the back of the slate positioned in non-cell areas to hold the paper in place and keep the top properly positioned over the back. The pins align with matching depressions on the side of the slate. A slate as designed for a normal 8.5 inch piece of paper has 28 cells in each row, the rows can be any number, usually at least four. The stylus is a short blunted awl with a handle to fit comfortably the hand of the user, Writing is accomplished by placing a piece of heavy paper in the slate, aligning it correctly and closing the slate. The pins in the back of the puncture or pinch the paper securely between the two halves of the slate. The person writing begins in the right, each combination of dots in the cell has to be completed backward. The awl is positioned and pressed to form a depression in the paper, the writer moves to one of the other dots in the cell or to the next cell as appropriate. The slate is repositioned as needed to continue writing on the paper, when completed the writer removes the slate and turns the paper over to read the braille by feeling the dots that were pushed up from the back. Prior to the system devised by Louis Braille, a number of methods for blind people to read and/or write on paper were used. One of the most popular was the English system of Dr. William Moon invented in 1845. Braille with its slate and stylus was unique in that it was the first and, until computers with screen readers, in June 1784, Haüy sought his first pupil at the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. On 5 December 1786, Haüys pupils had embossed from movable letterpress type his Essai sur léducation des aveugles the first book published for the blind. Prior to 1786 tools for the blind to read or write were the results of personal approaches to solutions. One of the more notable approach was that of Nicholas Saunderson blind nearly from birth, Braille evolved from the night writing of Charles Barbier
17.
Stanley Gibbons
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The group is incorporated in Jersey but with offices in London, Ringwood in Hampshire and Guernsey. They have also opened new offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. The company is a stamp dealer and philatelic publisher. The companys philatelic subsidiary, Stanley Gibbons Limited, has a warrant of appointment from Queen Elizabeth II. The company has a corporate history, having started as a sole trader business owned by Edward Stanley Gibbons in 1856. The business started when, employed as an assistant in his fathers shop in Plymouth. In 1863 he was enough to purchase from two sailors a sackful of rare Cape of Good Hope triangular stamps. In 1874 Gibbons moved to a house near Clapham Common in South London, by 1890 Stanley Gibbons wished to retire and the business was sold to Charles Phillips for £25,000. Phillips became Managing Director, with Gibbons as Chairman, a new issue department was opened in 1906. In 1914 the company received a warrant from George V. In 1956 the company celebrated its centenary with an exhibition at the Waldorf Hotel opened by Sir John Wilson and it is in that year that Queen Elizabeth II granted her royal warrant to Stanley Gibbons Ltd as her philatelist. In 1967 the firm expanded into the United States in a joint venture with Whitman Publishing, a magazine and catalogues were produced. In 1968 the previously privately held Stanley Gibbons Limited was floated on the market through a tender arranged by S. G. Warburg & Co. Ltd. The offer was a success and was oversubscribed five times. The shares were sold at 20 shillings rather than the tender price of 12 shillings. It was estimated there were 30 to 35 sharesholders before the offer and they still owned 66% of the equity after the offer. Prices subsequently slipped back, however, later in the year, in 1970 The Crown Agents acquired a 20% stake in the company and appointed two Directors to the Gibbons board. The stake was sold in 1976 by which time it had grown to 25% of the company, in 1977 Stanley Gibbons acquired the stock of the firm Chas Nissen, once run by the eminent stamp dealer and philatelist Charles Nissen
18.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
19.
Decorative arts
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The decorative arts are arts or crafts concerned with the design and manufacture of beautiful objects that are also functional. It includes interior design, but not usually architecture, the decorative arts are often categorized in opposition to the fine arts, namely, painting, drawing, photography, and large-scale sculpture, which generally have no function other than to be seen. The distinction between the decorative and the arts has essentially arisen from the post-Renaissance art of the West. This distinction is less meaningful when considering the art of other cultures and periods. For example, Islamic art in many periods and places consists entirely of the arts, often using geometric and plant forms. The distinction between decorative and fine arts is not very useful for appreciating Chinese art, and neither is it for understanding Early Medieval art in Europe, large-scale wall-paintings were much less regarded, crudely executed, and rarely mentioned in contemporary sources. They were probably seen as a substitute for mosaic, which for this period must be viewed as a fine art. The term ars sacra is sometimes used for medieval Christian art done in metal, ivory, textiles, illuminated manuscripts have a much higher survival rate, especially in the hands of the church, as there was little value in the materials and they were easy to store. Most European art during the Middle Ages had been produced under a different set of values. The lower status given to works of art in contrast to fine art narrowed with the rise of the Arts and Crafts Movement. This aesthetic movement of the half of the 19th century was born in England and inspired by William Morris. The movement represented the beginning of an appreciation of the decorative arts throughout Europe. Many converts, both professional artists ranks and from among the intellectual class as a whole, helped spread the ideas of the movement. The influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement led to the arts being given a greater appreciation and status in society. Until the enactment of the Copyright Act 1911 only works of art had been protected from unauthorised copying. The 1911 Act extended the definition of a work to include works of artistic craftsmanship
20.
Handicraft
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One of the worlds oldest handicraft is Dhokra, this is a sort of metal casting has been used in India for over 4,000 years and is still used. Collective terms for handicrafts include artisanry, handicrafting, crafting, many handicrafters use natural, even entirely indigenous, materials while others may prefer modern, non-traditional materials, and even upcycle industrial materials. The individual artisanship of an item is the paramount criterion. Most crafts require the development of skill and the application of patience, like folk art, handicraft output often has cultural and/or religious significance, and increasingly may have a political message as well, as in craftivism. The Arts and Crafts movement originated as a late 19th-century design reform and social movement principally in Europe, North America and Australia and this was held up in contrast to what was perceived to be the alienating effects of industrial labor. These activities were called crafts because originally many of them were professions under the guild system, adolescents were apprenticed to a master craftsman, and refined their skills over a period of years in exchange for low wages. Simple arts and crafts projects are an elementary and middle school activity in both mainstream and alternative education systems around the world. e. The use of traditional handicrafting techniques by professional fine artists, many community centers and schools run evening or day classes and workshops, for adults and children, offering to teach basic craft skills in a short period of time. If sold, they are sold in Direct sales, Gift shops, Public markets, in developing countries, handicrafts are sold to locals and as Souvenirs to tourists. Sellers tend to speak at least a few words of common tourist languages
21.
Textile arts
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Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects. The history of arts is also the history of international trade. Tyrian purple dye was an important trade good in the ancient Mediterranean, the Silk Road brought Chinese silk to India, Africa, and Europe. Tastes for imported luxury fabrics led to sumptuary laws during the Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution was a revolution of textiles technology, the cotton gin, the spinning jenny, and the power loom mechanized production and led to the Luddite rebellion. The word textile is from Latin texere which means to weave, the simplest textile art is felting, in which animal fibers are matted together using heat and moisture. Most textile arts begin with twisting or spinning and plying fibers to make yarn, the yarn is then knotted, looped, braided, or woven to make flexible fabric or cloth, and cloth can be used to make clothing and soft furnishings. All of these items – felt, yarn, fabric, construction methods such as sewing, knitting, crochet, and tailoring, as well as the tools employed, techniques employed and the objects made all fall under the category of textile arts. The princes capotain hat is made of felt using the most basic of textile techniques and his clothing is made of woven cloth, richly embroidered in silk, and his stockings are knitted. He stands on a rug of wool which softens and warms the floor. ISBN 0-901286-20-6 Arnold, Janet, Patterns of Fashion, the cut and construction of clothes for men and women 2000, barber, Elizabeth Wayland, Womens Work, The First 20,000 Years, W. W. Dynasties, Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 2000–2007. When silk was gold, Central Asian and Chinese textiles, new York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sarah Lowengard, The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-century Europe, Columbia University Press,2006 Antique textile design archive Contemporary Textile Artists
22.
Banner-making
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Banner-making is the ancient art or craft of sewing banners. Techniques used include applique, embroidery, fabric painting, patchwork, in the United Kingdom, the first of these banners were sometimes painted by local signwriters, coachpainters or decorators. More often than not, they were made by a member of the branch who was considered to be artistic. However, from 1837 onwards, more than three quarters were made by the firm of George Tutill of Chesham in Buckinghamshire, all their banners were made from pure silk woven by Huguenots in London. At the height of production there were said to be 17,000 looms in operation. The silk was stretched taut over a frame and coated with India rubber. This allowed the paint to dry quickly and to make it more pliant or elastic, there were many designs from the Bible, from heraldry or from popular tradition, e. g. the all-seeing eye, or symbols of truth, hope or justice. With the advent of Conservative governments in Britain after the 1979 general election, trades union banners lost their popularity, additionally the large number of trade union mergers meant that many banners no longer had the correct union name on and became obsolete. Durham Miners Gala is probably the largest current parade of trade union banners, there are special museums which restore, preserve and exhibit trade union banners, e. g. the Peoples History Museum in Manchester and Beamish Museum in the North East. Design is all-important in a banner for ecclesiastical use, the banner maker needs a sound knowledge of religious symbolism and iconography. There is also the question of its use, i. e. indoor or outdoor, if outdoor, it needs weatherproofing and must be able to be carried. Whether indoor or outdoor, proper storage provision must be made, the types of material can vary from vinyl to cloth
23.
Canvas work
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Canvas work is a type of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a canvas or other foundation fabric. Canvas work is a form of counted-thread embroidery, common types of canvas work include needlepoint, petit point, and bargello. Early canvas work or needlepoint used tent, continental or basketweave stitches, bargello, first developed in Europe, uses colors and stitches across multiple canvas intersections to create motion and patterns. Modern methods have incorporated crewel and other embroidery stitches to add depth and differences not only by shading, aida cloth or Hardanger fabric can also be used for canvas work, and plastic canvas is used in craft projects. Canvas is measured by the number of squares per inch or centimetre, in canvas work the stitches may completely cover the canvas. Newer methods will use the canvas as part of the pattern, yarns vary from knitting yarns and tapestry wools to pure silk, synthetic, or metallic threads. Fine ribbons, plastic thread, raffia and string can also be used in canvas work, a famous example of a large carpet worked in canvas work is the Bradford carpet which is on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
24.
Cross-stitch
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Cross-stitch is a form of sewing and a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. The stitcher counts the threads on a piece of fabric in each direction so that the stitches are of uniform size. This form of cross-stitch is also called counted cross-stitch in order to distinguish it from other forms of cross-stitch, sometimes cross-stitch is done on designs printed on the fabric, the stitcher simply stitches over the printed pattern. Cross-stitch is also executed on easily countable fabric called aida cloth, fabrics used in cross-stitch include linen, aida, and mixed-content fabrics called evenweave such as jobelan. Fabrics are categorized by threads per inch, which can range from 11 to 40 count, aida fabric has a lower count because it is made with two threads grouped together for ease of stitching. The finished stitching size is reduced by half if the stitcher counts and stitches over one fabric thread. These methods are referred to as 2 over 2 - i. e.2 embroidery threads used to stitch over 2 fabric threads. Cross-stitch is the oldest form of embroidery and can be all over the world. Many folk museums show examples of clothing decorated with cross-stitch, especially from continental Europe, Asia, and Eastern and Central Europe. The cross stitch sampler is called that because it was stitched by a young girl to learn how to stitch and to record alphabet. These samples of her stitching could be referred back to over the years, often, motifs and initials were stitched on household items to identify their owner, or simply to decorate the otherwise-plain cloth. In the United States, the earliest known cross-stitch sampler is currently housed at Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, the sampler was created by Loara Standish, daughter of Captain Myles Standish and pioneer of the Leviathan stitch, circa 1653. Traditionally, cross-stitch was used to embellish items like household linens, tablecloths, dishcloths, although there are many cross-stitchers who still employ it in this fashion, it is now increasingly popular to work the pattern on pieces of fabric and hang them on the wall for decoration. Cross stitch is often used to make greeting cards, pillowtops, or as inserts for box tops, coasters. Multicoloured, shaded, painting-like patterns as we know today are a fairly modern development. Besides designs created expressly for cross stitch, there are programs that convert a photograph or a fine art image into a chart suitable for stitching. One stunning example of this is in the cross stitched reproduction of the Sistine Chapel charted and stitched by Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts, individually owned local needlework shops often have stitching nights at their shops, or host weekend stitching retreats. Today cotton floss is the most common embroidery thread and it is a thread made of mercerized cotton, composed of six strands that are only loosely twisted together and easily separable
25.
Crochet
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Crochet is a process of creating fabric by interlocking loops of yarn, thread, or strands of other materials using a crochet hook. The name is derived from the French term crochet, meaning small hook and these are made of materials such as metal, wood, or plastic and are manufactured commercially and produced in artisan workshops. The word crochet is derived from the Old French crochet, a diminutive of croche, in turn from the Germanic croc, although that fabric is not known to be crochet in the present sense, a genealogical relationship between the techniques sharing that name appears likely. Knitted textiles survive from early periods but the first substantive evidence of crocheted fabric relates to its appearance in Europe during the 19th century, earlier work identified as crochet was commonly made by nålebinding, a separate looped yarn technique. The first known published instructions for crochet explicitly using that term to designate the craft in its present sense and this includes a color plate showing five different style purses of which three were intended to be crocheted with silk thread. The first is simple open crochet, a mesh of chain-stitch arches, the second starts in a semi-open form, where chain-stitch arches alternate with equally long segments of slip-stitch crochet, and closes with a star made with double-crochet stitches. The third purse is made entirely in double-crochet, the instructions prescribe the use of a tambour needle and introduce a number of decorative techniques. The earliest dated English reference to garments made of cloth produced by looping yarn with a hook — shepherds knitting — is in, The Memoirs of a Highland Lady, by Elizabeth Grant. The journal entry, itself, is dated 1812 but was not recorded in its published form until some time between 1845 and 1867, and the actual date of publication was first in 1898. Nonetheless, the 1833 volume of Penélopé describes and illustrates a shepherds hook, in 1842, one of the numerous books discussing crochet that began to appear in the 1840s states, Crochet needles, sometimes called Shepherds hooks, are made of steel, ivory, or box-wood. They have a hook at one end similar in shape to a fish-hook, by which the wool or silk is caught and these instruments are to be procured of various sizes. It derives its present name from the French, the instrument with which it is worked being by them, from its crooked shape, termed crochet. This art has attained its highest degree of perfection in England, whence it has been transplanted to France and Germany, an instruction book from 1846 describes Shepherd or Single Crochet as what in current British usage is either called single crochet or slip-stitch crochet, with U. S. American terminology always using the latter and it similarly equates Double and French crochet. Notwithstanding the categorical assertion of a purely British origin, there is evidence of a connection between French tambour embroidery and crochet. The former method of production was illustrated in detail in 1763 in Diderots Encyclopedia, the 1823 Penélopé instructions unequivocally state that the tambour tool was used for crochet and the first of the 1840s instruction books uses the terms tambour and crochet as synonyms. This equivalence is retained in the 4th edition of work,1847. The strong taper of the shepherds hook eases the production of slip-stitch crochet but is less amenable to stitches that require multiple loops on the hook at the same time, early yarn hooks were also continuously tapered but gradually enough to accommodate multiple loops
26.
Embroidery
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Embroidery is the handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate materials such as, pearls, beads, quills. Today, embroidery is most often seen on caps, hats, coats, blankets, dress shirts, denim, stockings, Embroidery is available with a wide variety of thread or yarn color. The process used to tailor, patch, mend and reinforce cloth fostered the development of sewing techniques, indeed, the remarkable stability of basic embroidery stitches has been noted, It is a striking fact that in the development of embroidery. There are no changes of materials or techniques which can be felt or interpreted as advances from a primitive to a later, on the other hand, we often find in early works a technical accomplishment and high standard of craftsmanship rarely attained in later times. The art of embroidery has been found world-wide and several examples have been found. Works in China have been dated to the Warring States period, depending on time, location and materials available, embroidery could be the domain of a few experts or a wide-spread, popular technique. This flexibility led to a variety of works, from the royal to the mundane, in 18th century England and its colonies, samplers employing fine silks were produced by the daughters of wealthy families. Embroidery was a marking a girls path into womanhood as well as conveying rank. Conversely, embroidery is also an art, using materials that were accessible to nonprofessionals. Examples include Hardanger from Norway, Merezhka from Ukraine, Mountmellick embroidery from Ireland, Nakshi kantha from Bangladesh and West Bengal, many techniques had a practical use such as Sashiko from Japan, which was used as a way to reinforce clothing. Embroidery was an important art in the Medieval Islamic world, the 17th century Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi called it the craft of the two hands. Because embroidery was a sign of social status in Muslim societies. Craftsmen embroidered items with gold and silver thread, Embroidery cottage industries, some employing over 800 people, grew to supply these items. Taste for fine material has become general, and the drapery of embroidered fabrics used at feasts surpasses every description. The development of embroidery and its mass production came about in stages in the Industrial Revolution. The earliest machine embroidery used a combination of machine looms and teams of women embroidering the textiles by hand and this was done in France by the mid-1800s. The manufacture of machine-made embroideries in St. Gallen in eastern Switzerland flourished in the half of the 19th century
27.
Felt
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Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of fibers such as wool, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood pulp-based rayon. Felt from wool is considered to be the oldest known textile, many cultures have legends as to the origins of felt making. Sumerian legend claims that the secret of feltmaking was discovered by Urnamman of Lagash, the story of Saint Clement and Saint Christopher relates that while fleeing from persecution, the men packed their sandals with wool to prevent blisters. At the end of their journey, the movement and sweat had turned the wool into felt socks, feltmaking is still practised by nomadic peoples in Central Asia, where rugs, tents and clothing are regularly made. Some of these are items, such as the classic yurt, while others are designed for the tourist market. Wrapping the properly arranged fiber in a sturdy, textured material, such as a mat or burlap. The felted material may be finished by fulling, only certain types of fiber can be wet felted successfully. Most types of fleece, such as those taken from the alpaca or the Merino sheep, one may also use mohair, angora, or hair from rodents such as beavers and muskrats. These types of fiber are covered in scales, similar to the scales found on a strand of human hair. Heat, motion, and moisture of the causes the scales to open, while agitating them causes them to latch onto each other. There is a theory that the fibers wind around each other during felting. Plant fibers and synthetic fibers will not wet felt, needle felting is a method of creating felted objects without using water. The special needles used to make 3D sculpture, jewelry, adornments and 2D art have notches along the shaft of the needle that catch fibers and tangle them with other fibers to produce felt. These notches are sometimes erroneously called barbs, but barbs are protrusion, there are many sizes and types of notched needles for different uses while working. Needle felting is used in processes as well as in individual crafting. Invented in the mid 17th century and used until the mid-20th centuries, beaver, rabbit or hare skins were treated with a dilute solution of the mercury compound mercuric nitrate. The skins were dried in an oven where the fur at the sides turned orange
28.
Friendship bracelet
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A friendship bracelet is a bracelet given by one person to another as a symbol of friendship. Friendship bracelets are often handmade, usually of embroidery floss or thread and are a type of macrame, there are various styles and patterns, but most are based on the same simple half-hitch knot. The amount of used in bracelets varies depending on the pattern. The smallest pattern, a double knot, requires two strings while the candy stripe can have as 3 or more strings depending on the desired thickness. Friendship bracelets first became popular in the United States during the 1970s and are worn by both male and female teenagers. They are now popular throughout the world and are not only popular among teenagers but among the older generation, friendship bracelets are ancient, but their resurgence is modern. The modern popularity of friendship bracelets started in the 1980s when they were seen during protests about the disappearances of Mayan Indians, the friendship bracelets were brought into the United States by religious groups for use in political rallies. Friendship bracelets can have many meanings and symbolic uses, such as friendship, folk art, or social statements. Although it is accepted that the origins of these colorful bands lie with the Indians in Central and South America. According to tradition, one ties a bracelet onto the wrist of a friend who may wish for something at that moment, the bracelet should be worn until it is totally worn out and falls off by itself, at which moment the wish is supposed to come true. Misanga is a good luck charm made from knotted embroidery floss. Similar to friendship bracelets, it is made with basic knots as well as patterning techniques and its basic structure is a three thread plaited braid. It is becoming a popular craft project. Pattern names vary depending on location, but are overall similar
29.
Knitting
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Knitting is a method by which yarn is manipulated to create a textile or fabric. Knitting creates multiple loops of yarn, called stitches, in a line or tube, Knitting has multiple active stitches on the needle at one time. Knitted fabric consists of a number of rows of interlocking loops. Knitting may be done by hand or by using a machine, different types of yarns, needle sizes, and stitch types may be used to achieve knitted fabrics with different properties. Like weaving, knitting is a technique for producing a two-dimensional fabric made from a one-dimensional yarn or thread, in weaving, threads are always straight, running parallel either lengthwise or crosswise. By contrast, the yarn in knitted fabrics follows a path, forming symmetric loops symmetrically above. These meandering loops can be stretched in different directions giving knit fabrics much more elasticity than woven fabrics. Depending on the yarn and knitting pattern, knitted garments can stretch as much as 500%, for this reason, knitting was initially developed for garments that must be elastic or stretch in response to the wearers motions, such as socks and hosiery. Thread used in weaving is usually much finer than the used in knitting. If they are not secured, the loops of a course will come undone when their yarn is pulled. To secure a stitch, at least one new loop is passed through it, although the new stitch is itself unsecured, it secures the stitch suspended from it. A sequence of stitches in each stitch is suspended from the next is called a wale. To secure the initial stitches of a fabric, a method for casting on is used, to secure the final stitches in a wale. During knitting, the stitches are secured mechanically, either from individual hooks or from a knitting needle or frame in hand-knitting. There are two varieties of knitting, weft knitting and warp knitting. In the more common weft knitting, the wales are perpendicular to the course of the yarn, in warp knitting, the wales and courses run roughly parallel. In weft knitting, the fabric may be produced from a single yarn, by adding stitches to each wale in turn. By contrast, in warp knitting, one yarn is required for every wale, since a typical piece of knitted fabric may have hundreds of wales, warp knitting is typically done by machine, whereas weft knitting is done by both hand and machine
30.
Lace
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Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Originally linen, silk, gold, or silver threads were used, now lace is often made with cotton thread, although linen and silk threads are still available. Manufactured lace may be made of synthetic fiber, a few modern artists make lace with a fine copper or silver wire instead of thread. The word lace is from Middle English, from Old French las, noose, strin, from Vulgar Latin *laceum, from Latin laqueus, noose, probably akin to lacere, there are many types of lace, classified by how they are made. These include, Needle lace, such as Venetian Gros Point, is using a needle. This is the most flexible of the lace-making arts, while some types can be made more quickly than the finest of bobbin laces, others are very time-consuming. Some purists regard needle lace as the height of lace-making, the finest antique needle laces were made from a very fine thread that is not manufactured today. Cutwork, or whitework, is constructed by removing threads from a woven background. Bobbin lace, as the name suggests, is made with bobbins, the bobbins, turned from wood, bone, or plastic, hold threads which are woven together and held in place with pins stuck in the pattern on the pillow. The pillow contains straw, preferably oat straw or other such as sawdust, insulation styrofoam. Chantilly lace is a type of bobbin lace, tape lace makes the tape in the lace as it is worked, or uses a machine- or hand-made textile strip formed into a design, then joined and embellished with needle or bobbin lace. Knotted lace includes macramé and tatting, tatted lace is made with a shuttle or a tatting needle. Crocheted lace includes Irish crochet, pineapple crochet, and filet crochet, knitted lace includes Shetland lace, such as the wedding ring shawl, a lace shawl so fine that it can be pulled through a wedding ring. Machine-made lace is any style of lace created or replicated using mechanical means, chemical lace, the stitching area is stitched with embroidery threads that form a continuous motif. Afterwards, the areas are removed and only the embroidery remains. The stitching ground is made of a water-soluble or non-heat-resistant material, the origin of lace is disputed by historians. An Italian claim is a will of 1493 by the Milanese Sforza family, a Flemish claim is lace on the alb of a worshiping priest in a painting about 1485 by Hans Memling. But since lace evolved from techniques, it is impossible to say that it originated in any one place
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Lucet
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Lucet cord is square, strong, and slightly springy. It closely resembles knitted I-cord or the cord produced on a knitting spool, lucet cord is formed by a series of loop like knots, and therefore will not unravel if cut. Archaeological finds and a description of lucets strongly suggest that its use declined after the 12th century. Its use waned again in the early 19th century, a modern lucet fork, like that pictured, is normally made of wood, with two prongs at one end and a handle on the other. It may also have a hole through which the cord can be pulled, medieval lucets, in contrast, appear to be double-pronged, straight-sided implements, often made of bone. Some were shaped from hollowed bones, left tubular, presumably so that the cord could be drawn through the centre hole, the only materials necessary to lucet are a length of yarn and a lucet fork, also called a lucet or a chain fork. However, one can also use sticks to pull the yarn over in addition to this. Lucets can be bought in shops as kits that are designed for children, to cast on, the yarn is put through the hole in the lucet from the front, and the yarn in front of the lucet is wound around the prongs twice in a figure-of-eight. The two lower loops are then lifted over the two loops using either the fingers or a stick until they come over the horns. The process is repeated, but this time only winding the yarn once around the prongs. When the desired length is reached, the lucet can be cast off by carefully lifting the loops off the prongs, passing the thread through them. Any loose thread can be cut off with scissors or tied together to form a closed circle, the cord can be wrapped around the lucet handle as it grows. Note that this is one technique. There are many techniques used for making lucet, all of which slightly different cords. It is also possible to produce a two-coloured cord by using two strands of yarn, lucet cord can be used for decorative edging, draw-strings, lacing, and any other use where a strong cord is needed. YouTube Instructional Video Lesson on how to lucet Lesson on how to double-lucet A page on knitting nancies, a descendant of the lucet
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Hatmaking
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Hatmaking is the manufacture of hats and head-wear. Millinery is the designing and manufacture of hats, a millinery shop is a store that sells those goods. A milliner or hatter designs, makes, trims, or sells hats, Millinery is sold to women, men and children, though some definitions limit the term to womens hats. More recently, the term milliner has evolved to describe a person who designs, makes, sells or trims hats primarily for a female clientele. The origin of the term is probably the Middle English milener, meaning an inhabitant of the city of Milan or one who deals in items from Milan, known for its fashion, many styles of headgear have been popular through history and worn for different functions and events. They can be part of uniforms or worn to indicate social status, styles include the top hat, hats worn as part of military uniforms, cowboy hat, and cocktail hat. This is a partial list of people who have had a significant influence on hatmaking, international Hat Company, an American manufacturer credited with inventing one of Americas most popular early 20th century harvest hats for field hands, farmers, and workmen. Hawley Products Company, an American manufacturer credited with inventing the tropical shaped, pressed fiber sun helmet used from World War II through the Persian Gulf War. John Cavanagh, an American hatter whose innovations included manufacturing regular, long, james Lock & Co. of London, is credited with the introduction of the bowler hat in 1849. John Batterson Stetson, credited with inventing the classic cowboy hat Giuseppe Borsalino, anna Ben-Yusuf wrote The Art of Millinery, one of the first reference books on millinery technique. Rose Bertin, milliner and modiste to Marie Antoinette, is described as the worlds first celebrity fashion designer. John Boyd is one of Londons most respected milliners and is known for the famous pink tricorn hat worn by Diana, lilly Daché was a famous American milliner of the mid-20th century. Frederick Fox was an Australian born milliner noted for his designs for the British Royal family, mr. John was an American milliner considered by some to be the millinery equivalent of Dior in the 1940s and 1950s. Stephen Jones of London, is considered one of the worlds most radical and important milliners of the late 20th, simone Mirman was known for her designs for Elizabeth II and other members of the British Royal Family. Caroline Reboux was a milliner of the 19th and early 20th centuries. David Shilling is a milliner, artist and designer based in Monaco. Justin Smith is an award-winning milliner creating bespoke and couture hats under the J Smith Esquire brand, philip Treacy of London is an award-winning milliner
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Needlepoint
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Needlepoint is a form of counted thread embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a stiff open weave canvas. Most needlepoint designs completely cover the canvas, although needlepoint may be worked in a variety of stitches, many needlepoint designs use only a simple tent stitch and rely upon color changes in the yarn to construct the pattern. The degree of detail in needlepoint depends on the count of the underlying mesh fabric. Needlepoint worked on canvas is known as petit point. Due to the inherent stiffness of needlepoint, common uses include cases, holiday ornaments, pillows, purses, upholstery. The roots of needlepoint go back thousands of years to the ancient Egyptians, howard Carter, of Tutankhamen fame, found some needlepoint in the cave of a Pharaoh who had lived around 1500 BCE. Modern needlepoint descends from the work in tent stitch, done on an evenly woven open ground fabric that was a popular domestic craft in the 16th century. Further development of needlepoint was influenced in the 17th century by Bargello, upholstered furniture became fashionable in the 17th century, and this prompted the development of a more durable material to serve as a foundation for the embroidered works of art. When referring to handcrafted textile arts which a speaker is unable to identify, the first recorded use of the term needlepoint is in 1869, as a synonym for point-lace. Isabella Beetons Beetons Book of Needlework does not use the term needlework, Berlin Work refers to a subset of needlepoint, popular in the mid-19th Century that was stitched in brightly colored wool on needlepoint canvas from hand-colored charts. Needlepoint refers to a set of stitching techniques worked upon stiff openwork canvas. However, needlepoint is not synonymous with all types of embroidery, because it is stitched on a fabric that is an open grid, needlepoint is not embellishing a fabric, as is the case with most other types of embroidery, but literally the making of a new fabric. It is for this reason that many needlepoint stitches must be of sturdier construction than other embroidery stitches, Needlepoint is often referred to as tapestry in the United Kingdom and sometimes as canvaswork. However, needlepoint—which is stitched on canvas mesh—differs from true tapestry—which is woven on a vertical loom, when worked on fine weave canvas in tent stitch, it is also known as petitpoint. Additionally, needlepoint lace is also a term for needle lace. The thread used for stitching may be wool, silk, cotton or combinations, variety fibers may also be used, such as metallic cord, metallic braid, ribbon, or raffia. Stitches may be plain, covering just one intersection with a single orientation, or fancy. Plain stitches, known as tent stitches, may be worked as basketweave, basketweave uses the most wool, but does not distort the rectangular mesh and makes for the best-wearing piece
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Needlework
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Needlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework, the definition may expand to include related textile crafts such as a crochet hook or tatting shuttles. Similar abilities often transfer well between different varieties of needlework, such as fine motor skill and a knowledge of textile fibres, some of the same tools may be used in several different varieties of needlework. For instance, a needle threader is useful in nearly all needlecrafts, needle lace Quilting Applique Embroidery Crochet Knitting Tatting Lucet Braiding and Tassel making Tapestry Needlepoint Bead Weaving, loom and off-loom Royal School of Needlework
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Patchwork
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Patchwork or pieced work is a form of needlework that involves sewing together pieces of fabric into a larger design. The larger design is based on repeating patterns built up with different fabric shapes. These shapes are carefully measured and cut, basic geometric shapes making them easy to piece together. Patchwork is most often used to make quilts, but it can also be used to make bags, wall-hangings, warm jackets, cushion covers, skirts, waistcoats, some textile artists work with patchwork, often combining it with embroidery and other forms of stitchery. When used to make a quilt, this larger patchwork or pieced design becomes the top of a quilt, the middle layer being the batting. Evidence of patchwork—piecing small pieces of fabric together to create a larger piece, the earliest examples have been located in Egyptian tombs and also in early age of China about 5000 years ago. Further finds have dated from the early Middle Ages, where layers of quilted fabric were used in the construction of armor—this kept the soldiers warm. Japanese armor was made in a similar fashion, using this technique, quilts began to appear in households of the 11th to 13th centuries. The tradition of making quilts in this fashion was taken to America by the Pilgrims, patchwork enjoyed a widespread revival during the Great Depression as a way to recycle worn clothing into warm quilts. Even very small and worn pieces of material are suitable for use in patchwork, in the US, patchwork declined after World War II, but was again revived during the American bicentennial. In the past, hand quilting was often done in a group around a frame, instead of quilting, the layers are sometimes tied together at regular intervals with pieces of yarn, a practice known as tying or knotting, and which produces a comforter. The 2003 Quilting in America survey estimated that the value of the American quilting industry was $2.7 billion. International quilting exhibitions attract thousands of visitors, while countless smaller exhibitions are held every weekend in local regions, Quilt Art is established as a legitimate artistic medium, with quilted works of art selling for thousands of dollars to corporate buyers and galleries. The American Quilt Study Group is active in promotion of research on the history of quilting, in Indian stitching blanket using different small pieces of cloth is an art. It is popularly known as Kaudhi in Karnataka, such blankets are given as gifts to newborn babies in some parts of Karnataka. Lambani tribes wear skirts with such art There are three structures used to construct a patchwork or pieced composition, 1) the block, 2) overall. Traditional patchwork has identifying names based on the arrangement of colors, patchwork blocks are pieced squares made up of colored shapes that repeat specific shapes to create patterns within the square or block, of, say, light and dark, or contrasting colors. The blocks can all repeat the pattern, or blocks can have several different patterns
36.
Quilting
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Quilting is the process of sewing two or more layers of fabric together to make a thicker padded material, usually to create a quilt or quilted garment. Typically quilting is done with three layers, the top fabric or quilt top, batting or insulating material and backing material, the process of quilting uses a needle and thread to join two or more layers of material to make a quilt. The quilters hand or sewing machine passes the needle and thread through all layers, the process is repeated across the entire area where quilting is wanted. Rocking, straight or running stitches are used with these stitches being purely functional or decorative. Quilting is done to create bed spreads, art quilt wall hangings, clothing, Quilting can make a project thick, or with dense quilting, can raise one area so that another stands out. The whole process of creating a quilt or quilted garment also involves other steps such as designing, piecing, appliqué, a person who works at quilting is termed a quilter. Quilting can be done by hand, via a sewing machine, Quilt stores often sell fabric, thread, patterns and other goods that are used for quilting. They often have group sewing and quilting classes where one can learn how to sew or quilt, the word quilt comes from the Latin culcita meaning a stuffed sack but it came into the English language from the French word cuilte. The origins of quilting remain unknown but sewing techniques of piecing, appliqué, the earliest known quilted garment is depicted on the carved ivory figure of a Pharaoh dating from the ancient Egyptian First Dynasty. In 1924 archaeologists discovered a quilted floor covering in Mongolia and they estimated its date as between 100 BC to 200 AD. Chinese patchwork continues as an folk art, there are numerous references to quilts in literature and inventories of estates. Crusaders brought quilted objects from the Middle East to Europe in the late 11th century, quilted garments known as gambesons were popular in the European Middle Ages. Knights wore them under their armor for comfort and sometimes as a garment to protect the metal armor from the weather. The earliest known surviving European bed quilt is from late fourteenth century Sicily and it is made of linen and padded with wool. The blocks across the center are scenes from the legend of Tristan, the quilt is 122 by 106 and is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Quilting has been part of the tradition in Europe from about the 5th century. Early objects contain Egyptian cotton, which may indicate that Egyptian and Mediterranean trade provided a conduit for the technique, quilted objects were relatively rare in Europe until approximately the twelfth century, when quilted bedding and other items appeared after the return of the Crusaders from the Middle East. The medieval quilted gambeson, aketon and arming doublet were garments worn under or instead of armor of maille or plate armor and these developed into the later quilted doublet worn as part of fashionable European male clothing from the fourteenth to seventeenth century
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Rug hooking
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Rug hooking is both an art and a craft where rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or fabric through a stiff woven base such as burlap, linen, or rug warp. The loops are pulled through the material by using a crochet-type hook mounted in a handle for leverage. In contrast latch-hooking uses a hook to form a knotted pile from short. Wool strips ranging in size from 3/32 to 10/32 of an inch in width are often used to create hooked rugs or wall hangings and these precision strips are usually cut using a mechanical cloth slitter, however, the strips can also be hand-cut or torn. When using the technique the rugs are usually done in a primitive motif. Designs for the rugs are often produced and can be as complex as flowers or animals to as simple as geometrics. Rug-hooking has been popular in North America for at least the past 200 years, the author William Winthrop Kent believed that the earliest forebears of hooked rugs were the floor mats made in Yorkshire, England during the early part of the 19th century. Workers in weaving mills were allowed to collect thrums, pieces of yarn that ran 9 inches long and these by-products were useless to the mill, and the weavers took them home and pulled the thrums through a backing. The origins of the word thrum are ancient, as Mr. Kent pointed out a reference in Shakespeares Merry Wives of Windsor. To add to this there are examples at the Folk Museum in Guernsey. In its earliest years, rug hooking was a craft of poverty, the vogue for floor coverings in the United States came about after 1830 when factories produced machine-made carpets for the rich. Poor women began looking through their bags for materials to employ in creating their own home-made floor coverings. Women employed whatever materials they had available, girls from wealthy families were sent to school to learn embroidery and quilting, fashioning floor rugs and mats was never part of the curriculum. Another sign that hooking was the pastime of the poor is the fact that popular ladies magazines in the 19th century never wrote about rug hooking and it was considered a country craft in the days when the word country, used in this context, was derogatory. Today rug hooking or mat making as it is referred to has been labeled in Canada as a fine art. Since hooking was a craft of poverty, rug makers put to use whatever materials were available, antique hooked rugs were created on burlap after 1850 because burlap was free as long as one used old grain and feed bags. Every and any scrap of fiber that was no longer usable as clothing was put into rugs, in the United States, yarn was not a fiber of choice if one did not have access to thrums. Yarn was too precious, and had to be saved for knitting and weaving, instead the tradition of using scraps of fabric evolved
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Rug making
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Rug making is an ancient craft, and covers a variety of techniques. Braided rugs are made by using three or more strips of fabric, usually wool, folding the raw edges to the middle, for an oval rug the center braid should be one inch longer than the width-length in feet. Example 2 x 4 rug center strip would be 22 long, the center braid is laced together and new strips are sewn on to make the braid longer as lacing continues. Traditional rug hooking is a craft in which rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or fabric through a stiff woven base such as burlap, linen, the loops are pulled through the backing material by using a latch hook mounted in a handle for leverage. Rag rugs were made in households up to the middle of the 20th century by using odd scraps of fabric on a background of old sacking. Using either yarn or strips of cloth, you work with the tool from the back side of the pattern. The Monk’s cloth backing is tightly stretched on to a frame, every time you punch the needle down through the backing, it makes a long thread on the right side of the rug. Then, as you lift the needle, it makes it into a loop. These loops pack together to create a rug so solid that chewing dogs, as long as you use the tool correctly, it will automatically make all the loops the same length. Sometimes referred to as speed hooking, this method of rug hooking is liked for its ease, proddy rugs are made, as the name implies, by prodding or poking strips of fabric through burlap or linen from the back side. Rag rugs made this way have many names, clippies, proddies, stobbies, pricked, in Northumberland they are called proggy mats and they were often made for more utilitarian use such as by the backdoor, their pile hiding dirt well. Woven rugs include both flat rugs and pile rugs, the more tightly a rug is woven or knotted, the more detailed a design can be. It is generally believed that the density of knots, the age, the material, determines the value of a carpet. Afghan carpet Flooring Gabbeh Heatsetting Knot density Oriental rugs Tapestry Latch Hook Rug Making The Rug-Weaving peoples Beaconsfield Hooking Crafters Guild website Latch Hooking
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Sewing
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Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. For thousands of years, all sewing was done by hand, fine hand sewing is a characteristic of high-quality tailoring, haute couture fashion, and custom dressmaking, and is pursued by both textile artists and hobbyists as a means of creative expression. The first known use of the sewing was in the 14th century. Sewing has an ancient history estimated to begin during the Paleolithic Age, Sewing was used to stitch together animal hides for clothing and for shelter. The weaving of cloth from natural fibres originated in the Middle East around 4000 BCE, and perhaps earlier during the Neolithic Age, during the Middle Ages, Europeans who could afford it employed seamstresses and tailors. Sewing for the most part was an occupation, and most sewing before the 19th century was practical. Clothing was an investment for most people, and women had an important role in extending the longevity of items of clothing. Clothing that was faded would be turned inside-out so that it could continue to be worn, once clothing became worn or torn, it would be taken apart and the reusable cloth sewn together into new items of clothing, made into quilts, or otherwise put to practical use. The many steps involved in making clothing from scratch meant that women often bartered their expertise in a skill with one another. Decorative needlework such as embroidery was a skill, and young women with the time. From the Middle Ages to the 17th century, sewing tools such as needles, decorative embroidery was valued in many cultures worldwide. Some examples are the Cretan Open Filling stitch, Romanian Couching or Oriental Couching, the stitches associated with embroidery spread by way of the trade routes that were active during the Middle Ages. European imperial settlements also spread embroidery and sewing techniques worldwide, however, there are instances of sewing techniques indigenous to cultures in distant locations from one another, where cross-cultural communication would have been historically unlikely. For example, a method of reverse appliqué known to areas of South America is also known to Southeast Asia, the Industrial Revolution shifted the production of textiles from the household to the mills. In the early decades of the Industrial Revolution, the machinery produced whole cloth, the worlds first sewing machine was patented in 1790 by Thomas Saint. By the early 1840s, other early sewing machines began to appear, by the 1850s, Isaac Singer developed the first sewing machines that could operate quickly and accurately and surpass the productivity of a seamstress or tailor sewing by hand. While much clothing was produced at home by female members of the family
40.
Shoemaking
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Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand, shoemakers, also known as cordwainers or snobs, may produce a range of footwear items, including shoes, boots, sandals, clogs and moccasins. Such items are made of leather, wood, rubber, plastic, jute or other plant material. Trades that engage in shoemaking have included the cordwainers and cobblers trades, today shoes are often made on a factory basis rather than a craft basis. For most of history, shoemaking has been a handicraft, limited to time consuming manufacture by hand, traditional shoemakers used more than 15 different techniques of making shoes. Some of these were, pegged construction, English welted, goyser welted, Norwegian, stitchdown, turnout, German sewn, moccasin, bolognese stitched, and blake-stitched. The most basic foot protection, used since ancient times in the Mediterranean area, was the sandal, similar footwear worn in the Far East was made from plaited grass or palm fronds. In climates that required a full foot covering, a piece of untanned hide was laced with a thong, providing full protection for the foot. The production of shoes, was widespread in medieval Europe. They were made from a piece of wood roughly cut into shoe form. A variant of this form was the clog, which were wooden soles to which a leather upper was attached, the sole and heel were made from one piece of maple or ash two inches thick, and a little longer and broader than the desired size of shoe. With the use of a hollower, the inner soles contours were adapted to the shape of the foot, the leather uppers were then fitted closely to the groove around the sole. Clogs were of great advantage to workers in muddy and damp conditions, keeping the feet dry, by the 1600s, leather shoes came in two main types. Turn shoes consisted of one thin flexible sole, which was sewed to the upper while outside in and this type was used for making slippers and similar shoes. The second type united the upper with an insole, which was attached to an out-sole with a raised heel. This was the variety, and was used for most footwear, including standard shoes. The traditional shoemaker would measure the feet and cut out upper leathers according to the required size and these parts were fitted and stitched together. The insole was then attached to a last made of wood, some lasts were straight, while curved lasts came in pairs, one for left shoes, the other for right shoes
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Spinning (textiles)
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Spinning is a major part of the textile industry. The textiles are then fabricated into finished fabrics, garments, home textiles, clothes or other products, there are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a handicraft community who use hand spinning techniques. Spinning is the twisting together of drawn out strands of fibres to form yarn, though it is used to describe the process of drawing out, inserting the twist. In simple words, spinning is a process in which we convert fibres by passing through certain processes like blow room, carding, drawing, combing, simplex, ring frame and these yarns are then wound onto the cones. Artificial fibres are made by extruding a polymer through a spinneret into a medium where it hardens, wet spinning uses a coagulating medium. In dry spinning, the polymer is contained in a solvent that evaporates in the heated exit chamber, in melt spinning the extruded polymer is cooled in gas or air and sets. All these fibres will be of length, often kilometers long. Natural fibres are either from animals, mineral, or from plants and these vegetable fibres can come from the seed, the stem or the leaf. Without exception, many processes are needed before a clean even staple is obtained – each with a specific name. With the exception of silk, each of these fibres is short, being only centimetres in length, artificial fibres can be processed as long fibres or batched and cut so they can be processed like a natural fibre. Ring-spinning is the most common spinning method in the world, other systems include air-jet and open-end spinning. Open-end spinning is done using break or open-end spinning and this is a technique where the staple fibre is blown by air into a rotor and attaches to the tail of formed yarn that is continually being drawn out of the chamber. Other methods of break spinning use needles and electrostatic forces, the processes to make yarn short-staple yarn are blending, opening, carding, pin-drafting, roving, spinning, and—if desired—plying and dyeing. In long staple spinning, the process may start with stretch-break of tow, in open-end and air-jet spinning, the roving operation is eliminated. The spinning frame winds yarn a bobbin, generally, after this step the yarn is wound to a cone for knitting or weaving. In mule spinning the roving is pulled off a bobbin and fed through rollers, if the roving was not a consistent size, then this step could cause a break in the yarn, or could jam the machine. The yarn is twisted through the spinning of the bobbin as the carriage moves out, mule spinning produces a finer thread than the less skilled ring spinning. The mule was an intermittent process, as the advanced and returned a distance of 5ft. It was the descendant of a 1779 Crompton device
42.
String art
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Thread, wire, or string is wound around a grid of nails hammered into a velvet-covered wooden board. Though straight lines are formed by the string, the different angles. Quadratic Bézier curve are obtained from strings based on two intersecting segments, other forms of string art include Spirelli, which is used for cardmaking and scrapbooking, and curve stitching, in which string is stitched through holes. String art has its origins in the curve stitch activities invented by Mary Everest Boole at the end of the 19th century to make mathematical ideas more accessible to children and it was popularised as a decorative craft in the late 1960s through kits and books. Bézier curve Spirelli Curve Stitching Reverse String Art 3D String Art Lois Kreischer, mark Jansen, Ric Barline, Fred Fortune. The Art of Geometric Thread Design,44 String and Nail Art Projects. Pin Pictures With Wire and Thread, clapper Publications Co. Ridge Park, Illinois. Plenary Publications International, New York, NY, techniques and Designs in Pin and Thread Craft. ISBN 0-7134-0535-X Roland and Dominique Cauro
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Tapestry
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Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically discontinuous, the artisan interlaces each coloured weft back and it is a plain weft-faced weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the warp to form the design. Most weavers use a warp thread, such as linen or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton, but may include silk, gold, silver, the earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek
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Tatting
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Tatting is a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace from a series of knots and loops. Tatting can be used to make lace edging as well as doilies, collars, accessories such as earrings and necklaces, and other decorative pieces. The lace is formed by a pattern of rings and chains formed from a series of cow hitch or half-hitch knots, called double stitches, gaps can be left between the stitches to form picots, which are used for practical construction as well as decorative effect. Tatting dates to the early 19th century, gaining popularity in the 1860s through 1880s, the term for tatting in most European languages is derived from French frivolité, which refers to the purely decorative nature of the textiles produced by this technique. Tatting with a shuttle is the earliest method of creating tatted lace, a tatting shuttle facilitates tatting by holding a length of wound thread and guiding it through loops to make the requisite knots. Historically, it was a metal or ivory pointed-oval shape less than 3 inches long, shuttles often have a point or hook on one end to aid in the construction of the lace. Antique shuttles and unique shuttles have become sought after by collectors — even those who do not tat, to make the lace, the tatter wraps the thread around one hand and manipulates the shuttle with the other hand. No tools other than the thread, the hands and the shuttle are used, traditional shuttle tatting may be simulated using a tatting needle or doll needle instead of a shuttle. There are two techniques for needle tatting. With the more widely disseminated technique, a double thread passes through the stitches, the result is similar to shuttle tatting but is slightly thicker and looser. The second technique more closely approximates shuttle tatting because a single thread passes through the stitches, needle tatting originated in the early twentieth century, but did not become popular until much later. A tatting needle is a long, blunt needle that does not change thickness at the eye of the needle, the needle used must match the thickness of the thread chosen for the project. Rather than winding the shuttle, the needle is threaded with a length of thread, to work with a second color, a second needle is used. Although needle tatting looks similar to shuttle tatting, it differs in structure and is thicker and looser because both the needle and the thread must pass through the stitches. However, it may be seen that the Victorian tatting pin would function as a tatting needle, as well, Florence Hartley refers in The Ladies Hand Book of Fancy and Ornamental Work to the use of the tatting needle, so it must have originated prior to the mid-1800s. In the late 20th century, tatting needles became commercially available in a variety of sizes, few patterns are written specifically for needle tatting, some shuttle tatting patterns may be used without modification. There are currently two manufacturers of tatting needles, cro-tatting combines needle tatting with crochet. The cro-tatting tool is a needle with a crochet hook at the end
45.
Tie-dye
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Tie-dye is a modern term invented in the mid-1960s in the United States ) for a set of ancient resist-dyeing techniques, and for the products of these processes. The process of tie-dye typically consists of folding, twisting, pleating, or crumpling fabric or a garment and binding with string or rubber bands, followed by application of dye. The manipulations of the prior to application of dye are called resists. Unlike regular resist-dyeing techniques, tie-dye is characterized by the use of bright, saturated primary colors and bold patterns. These patterns, including the spiral, mandala, and peace sign, the vast majority of currently produced tie-dyes use these designs, and many are mass-produced for wholesale distribution. A few artists continue to pursue tie-dye as an art rather than a commodity. A variety of dyes can be used in tie-dyeing, including household, fiber reactive, acid, most early tie-dyes were made with retail household dyes, particularly those made by Rit. This is the basis for the famous pink socks phenomenon that occurs when fabrics dyed with mixed dyes are washed with other garments. Most tie-dyes are now dyed with Procion MX fiber reactive dyes, a class of dyes effective on cellulose fibers such as cotton, hemp, rayon and this class of dyes reacts with fibers at alkaline pH, forming a wash-fast, permanent bond. Soda ash is the most common agent used to raise the pH and initiate the reaction, Procion dyes are relatively safe and simple to use, and are the same dyes used commercially to color cellulosic fabrics. Protein-based fibers such as silk, wool, and feathers, as well as the synthetic fiber, nylon. As may be expected from the name, acid dyes are effective at acidic pH, acid dyes are also relatively safe and simple to use. Vat dyes, including indigo, are a class of dyes that are effective on cellulosic fibers. Vat dyes are insoluble in water in their form. This is accomplished by heating the dye in a basic solution of sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate containing a reducing agent such as sodium hydrosulfite or thiourea dioxide. The fabric is immersed in the dye bath, and after removal the vat dye oxidizes to its insoluble form, however, vat dyes, and especially indigo, must be treated after dyeing by soaping to prevent the dye from rubbing off. Vat dyes can be used to dye the fabric and to remove underlying fiber-reactive dye because of the bleaching action of the reducing bath. The extra complexity and safety issues restrict use of vat dyes in tie-dye to experts, discharge agents are used to bleach color from previously-dyed fabrics, and can be used in a sort of reverse tie-dye
