DRAPERY AND UPHOLSTERY FIBERS AND FABRICS
FIBERS AND THEIR ORIGINS
Fibers used in the manufacture of home furnishing materials are both of animal and of vegetable origin. The former include the true and "wild" silks; wool, or sheep's hair; mohair, the hair of the Angora goat; horsehair, chiefly from the tail and mane; and in limited quantities the hair of the cow, pig, camel, and rabbit. Vegetable fibers include cotton, rayon, flax hemp, jute, ramie, kapok, palm fibers, moss, coir, and paper made from wood pulp. Their general characteristics are discussed here.
Animal Fibers.
Silk.—True silk is produced by the mulberry silk moth of China. Just how ancient the art of sericulture and the spinning and weaving of silk may be we do not know; but there is no doubt that it had reached a state of considerable development 4,500 years ago. It reached Japan about 1,600 years ago, and India somewhat later. About the year A. D. 550 two Persian monks brought eggs of the silk worm from China to Constantinople in a hollow cane, and the western silk industry was started.
The "wild" silks are produced by other worms, feeding for the most part on other leaves than mulberry. Most of the so-called tussah silk comes from the oak-feeding tussah worm, a native of Mongolia. The fiber is coarser than that of true silk, and so difficult to dye effectively that fabrics woven from it are usually left in the natural ecru or pale brown color.
Wool.—The many varieties of sheep yield wools which differ markedly in fineness, length of staple (2 to 16 inches for use in textiles), strength, resilience, and spinning quality. Accordingly, wools are sorted and "blended" before spinning, to suit the requirements of the particular fabric to be woven. Carpetings require the fairly long staple and fairly coarse fiber found in wools from Scotland, Russia, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, China, India, and the East Indies. The unsurpassable carpet wools of Persia and Asia Minor are largely consumed locally. Carpet wools naturally differ widely in desirability and cost, as do the many processes necessary to prepare wool for the loom. These differences require emphasis from the salesman in the demonstration of concealed values.
Most carpet wools arrive at the factory in the fleece, matted, dirty, and greasy. They are blended according to formula; passed first through a machine which separates the tangled masses and beats out free dirt; then to the scouring baths, which remove all grease and other impurities; then, after passing through a series of powerful wringers, to the dryer; and finally to the picker, from which they emerge ready for spinning.
Worsted yarns, used in making fine Wiltons, body Brussels, Wilton velvets and some chenilles, result from a succession of processes in which the fibers are placed parallel, the short ones eliminated, and the long fibers combed and drawn out into a fine, even "roving," which is spun into a thread, two such threads then being tightly twisted together to form a single-ply worsted yarn. These single-ply yarns are then twisted together to form two-ply, three-ply, or four-ply yarns according to the specifications for a particular weave.
Woolen yarns are made from short staple wool, and depend for their strength upon the minute serrations or scales on the surfaces of the wool fibers, which cause them to adhere, or felt, when held tightly together. The carding machine used in preparing these wools for spinning thoroughly intermixes the fibers instead of drawing them into parallel formations, as for worsteds. The loose roving is then spun into single strands, which are twisted into two-, three-, or four-ply yarns as in the case of worsteds.
Mohair.—The hair of the Angora goat is closely allied to wool, typically 7 to 8 inches long. It is lustrous, resilient, and enduring, but harder to spin than wool because the hair scales are not fully developed. Mohair fabrics have been used in the Orient since time immemorial, and they were popular in England in the early eighteenth century.
There are wide differences in mohair upholstery fabrics, based upon the quality of wool, number of points per square inch, and height of pile.
Horsehair.—The hair of the horse's mane and tail is used as a single filament without spinning in the production of upholstery chair cloths, and for floor coverings. In the form of curled hair it is the most resilient and costly upholstery stuffer.
Pig's bristles and cow hair are used for the same purpose. The soft hair of the camel is used in weaving certain oriental rugs, and rabbit hair in certain felts.
Vegetable Fibers.
Cotton.—This textile is in universal use and requires no comment. The silky appearance of some damasks and other cotton fabrics is caused by mercerizing, a process of treating cotton in either fiber or fabric form with caustic alkali.
Rayon.—This term, which in French means ray or beam, has lately been applied to artificial silks produced by any of four different industrial processes. Viscose silk, made chiefly from sulfite pulp cellulose, constitutes the great bulk of the rayon production today. It is now often combined with natural fibers, particularly wool and cotton, in drapery and upholstery fabrics which afford the luster of rayon plus the strength of wool or cotton.
Flax.—This plant has been cultivated since the stone age, and was regarded as the most important plant of commerce until near the end of the eighteenth century, when it was superseded by cotton. Flax fiber yields linen; also from it is obtained the tow used as a stuffer in upholstering.
Hemp.—The fiber of this plant closely approaches flax in strength but not in luster. It is used to a very limited extent in drapery textiles and cheap carpets. The waste fibers are also known as tow, and sometimes used in place of flax tow.
Jute.—A plant, grown chiefly in India, the lustrous fiber of which is used to a considerable extent in the manufacture of cretonnes, damasks, and other decorative textiles.
Ramie.—This plant, also known as rhea and China grass and cultivated chiefly in China, yields a fiber of great strength and a luster about like that of mercerized cotton. It is used in the manufacture of grass cloth, and also of ramie velvets, which are firm but less lustrous than linen velvets.
Kapok.—A tree cultivated in Java for the production of down; called in commerce kapok or "silk-cotton." Before the commercial development of rayon it made considerable headway as a textile fiber, but now is used chiefly as a stuffer for mattresses and pillows. Kapok has great resiliency and resistance to water.
Palm fiber.—Shredded leaves of the palmetto, used as a stuffer in upholstering.
Moss.—The hairlike filament left after the soft outer tissue of southern moss has been removed; used as a stuffer.
Coir.—Fiber prepared from the husk of the cocoanut; used in making porch rugs and brush mats.
Paper.—Spun into coarse threads and used in the manufacture of so-called fiber rugs.
DRAPERY AND UPHOLSTERY FABRICS
Tapestries.
Hand-made tapestries are woven on a loom harnessed with thin warps, by passing a shuttle containing a colored yarn over and under the warp thread where the color is required to form the pattern. In every line of weft or filling, the shuttle must be changed every time a change of color is required by the cartoon, or colored drawing of the design from which the weaver works. He sees the face of the tapestry, if at all, only in a mirror placed in front of the loom. Tapestry weaving requires a high degree of artistic and technical skill; hand-made tapestries are costly.
Machine-made tapestries are produced on a Jacquard loom, of wool, cotton, silk, or rayon, or in mixtures of these fibers. They vary enormously in appearance and durability.
Velvets, Velours.
Although the term velvet and its French equivalent (velours) may be used interchangeably, the general custom is to call drapery fabrics velours, and upholstery fabrics velvets. Both are made in a great variety of plain, stripe, and brocaded effects, and with the pile all cut, all uncut (looped) or else partially cut. Machine-made velvets and velours are made from silk, rayon, cotton, linen, ramie and wool, usually 50 inches wide and in a range of prices and qualities practically unlimited. In some of the cheaper upholstery velours the design is embossed, or depressed by a stamping machine, but in others it is placed in relief by cutting away the pile of the ground.
Plushes.
Plushes are long-pile velvets, formerly of silk or wool but now mostly of mohair. Properly their pile is less close and firm than that of velvets, but some of the finest quality mohair plushes have a very close, erect pile. In ordinary qualities the pile leans sharply, and in the panne type it is so flat as to have somewhat the same effect as lustrous satin.
Frisés, Friezes.
These terms are now loosely used. "Frieze" in French means curled or frizzed, and the word properly refers to a class of plushes in which the pile has been completely or partially frizzled. It is now applied to a variety of texture effects in velvet and plush, among them uncut patterns on a cut-pile ground; cut patterns on an uncut ground; plain velvets with alternating lines of cut and uncut pile; and uncut velvets.
Satins and Sateens.
Satins and sateens are made in the same way; the former of silk and the latter of cotton, plain or mercerized. The weave is technically a twill, but so modified that the diagonal lines are not visible, and the whole surface is smooth and lustrous.
Damasks, Armorers, Brocades, Brocateles.
It is difficult to define these weaves in a few words, and quite impossible to describe the extraordinary variety of textile effects produced by modern manufacturers, both in the basic weaves and in combination of two or more techniques.
Photo by Grignon.
Figure 34.—Authenticity is stressed in this handsome sofa upholstered in a fabric which is an exact reproduction of a print used more than a century ago. The monotone print is in a soft brown tone. Accompanying the sofa is a duck-foot cocktail table with removable glass tray, and lovely gold framed portrait of Jenny Lind. The Axminster rug is a "texture chintz" in a tile green with small red, beige, and brown flowers.
Damasks are pileless figured fabrics in which the pattern is produced by exposing the warp threads, and the ground by exposing the weft threads; or the reverse. They may be made with both warp and weft in the satin weave, in which case the only contrast between pattern and ground is that caused by the direction of the lines; or with warp satin figures on a weft ground of taffeta or twill weave; or with weft satin figures on a ground of contrasting weave. Warp and weft may be of exactly the same color; or of two tones of one hue; or of two different hues. More than two colors are possible only through the device of striping, where warp threads of additional hues are introduced to form stripes which necessarily run the whole length of the piece. Damasks are made of silk, rayon, wool, cotton, mohair, linen, or jute, or in mixtures of two or more of these fibers.
Armures look like twilled weave damasks, except that they have small raised patterns produced by floating warp threads.
Brocades are embroidery effects produced by floating wefts on the surface of damask, satin, taffeta, and other weaves. Gold or silver metal threads are sometimes introduced in the figures.
Brocateles were originally somewhat coarse fabrics of silk and wool or silk and cotton with designs produced by the brocade weave. The term is now also applied to a type of heavy satin damask in which the satin figure is on a lustrous ground of the same or contrasting color.
Printed fabrics.—Both hand-and machine-made printed fabrics are produced in an enormous variety; on linen, cotton, silk, rayon, mohair, wool, and jute grounds; and on plain twill, rep, damask, velvet, and other grounds.
1. Printed linens are made on grounds which vary in fineness and smoothness according to the scale and decorative character of the design. Hand-blocked linens vary in price with the quality of materials and craftsmanship, and also with the number of blockings required to form the design. In recent years both linen and cotton grounds have to some extent been machine-printed with wooden rollers instead of copper or brass, and against a padded backing, which has resulted in improving both line and coloring, and in giving them much the appearance of hand-blocked fabrics.
2. Cretonnes are made both by hand-and by roller-printing processes on unglazed cotton ground of widely varying texture and decorative effect, and at prices ranging from a few cents per yard for the cheapest roller-printed fabrics up to $15 or more for the elaborately hand-blocked effects. Thick and heavy cretonnes are made for wall panels and furniture coverings, and a few splendid figure panels are available in Gothic, heraldic, and mille fleur designs which resemble the old painted tapestries of fifteenth century France.
3. Chintzes are printed on a fine cotton holland. Glazed chintzes have a varnish-like glow and considerable stiffness; semi-glazed are less glossy and more soft and pliable; unglazed closely resemble good cretonne, but the texture is finer.
4. Warp-prints or shadow prints are made by a process similar to that employed in drum-painting velvet carpets. Designs produced by this technique necessarily lack definition, and have a soft and shadowy appearance which cannot be produced by hand or roller printing. The most effective warp prints are of plain or mercerized cotton.
Embroideries.—Embroideries are justly considered important today. The art of the needle worker ranks close to that of the weaver of fine rugs and tapestries. Two only of its many forms are mentioned here.
1. Crewel work is customarily worked with colored worsted yarns on a plain linen ground, sometimes completely covered, but usually left open to form a background for the pattern. The stitches are varied in direction and character in order to give interest and richness to the texture. Most of the crewel work sold in the stores today is made with the bonnaz embroidery machine, which closely simulates the decorative effect of needlework.
2. Needlepoint embroidery is worked on open canvas. The fine or "petit point" (little point) is formed by stitches taken diagonally from one opening in the canvas to the next. The coarse or "gros (big) point" is made by similar stitches twice the length, and with thicker yarns.
Practically everything written about upholstery fabrics stresses their decorative value or their appropriateness to other furnishings in the room. Little is reported about their physical structure or durability. Those desiring to make a comparison of fabrics for breaking strength, weight per square yard, fabric balance, and resistance to abrasion will do well to secure a copy of Circular No. 483, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. The title is "Proposed Minimum Requirements of Three Types of Upholstery Fabrics Based on Analysis of 62 Materials." Copy may be secured from Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., price 5 cents.