Elastic and non-elastic narrow fabrics / and a chapter on narrow fabrics made on knitting machines

by Samuel Brown

Stitch Fancy Patterns

When the design is made from the warp, the figure threads are made to float on the face of the goods so that upon contraction of the web after weaving, these floats pearl up in prominence above the level of the face, and make what is termed a stitch figure.

Fig. 4.—Point Draw Stitch Figure

Fig. 4A.—Harness and Chain Draft for Fig. 4

It is not our purpose here to particularize in design, which is practically unlimited, but only to refer to those features which govern the construction and illustrate as necessary. In order to maintain a proper balance where figures are introduced on single cloth weaves, it is necessary to distribute the figure warp uniformly over both the face and back of the goods so as to maintain a proper balance between the two. In the double cloth webs the figure warp, when not appearing on the face of the goods, is allowed to run straight between the upper and lower cloths, going in the same cavity or pocket as the rubber threads, and it works at these times as a gut. This, of course, in a measure interferes with the contraction of the goods and has to be taken into consideration in the construction. Here again we must note the effect of the contraction in piling up the floating-figure threads, and the necessity of limiting the floats in making the design so as to avoid any ragged appearance.

Fig. 5.—Interchanging Figure and Face

Fig. 5A.—Harness and Chain Draft for Fig. 5

Fig. 4 shows a design of this character, with the harness and chain draft at Fig. 4A. In this particular web there are six harnesses used for the main body and ten for the figure, which is a point draw. While the figure is evenly distributed on the web, wherever it is not seen it is running between the upper and lower cloths, as already described, and acting as a gut.

In order to get a proper balance of the web it is necessary to put gut threads into the two outer cords where no figure appears, which must be equivalent in size to the figure threads employed in each of the 21 center cords. If this is not done the web will contract unduly at the edges and make it “belly.” The method here used of burying the figure between the upper and lower cloths when not needed in carrying out the design, affords opportunity for introducing additional warp threads of different colors, so as to be able to bring up either one color or another as desired in a design.

As most of the fancy head looms have not more than 18 harnesses, it will be seen that the scope of design in this class of loom is somewhat limited, therefore much ingenuity is required to get elaborate designs from such limited capacity. But careful study opens up a variety of methods by which a big range of designs is possible.