Checks.—Fabrics having rectangular patterns formed by crossing the threads of a striped warp with weft threads of the same order. "Mock" Checks are produced by combining weave effects.
When Checks are woven without a highly variegated colouring they are known as Ginghams.
Cheese Cloth.—A very open and lightly constructed thin cotton fabric of light weight and low-count yarns, woven with a plain weave, weighing from 9 to 12 yards to the pound. Cheese Cloth is often used for Bunting, by which name it is sometimes known. The Cheese Cloth used for wrapping round cheese and butter after they have been pressed is a bleached cloth.
Cheviot.—Most stout woollen fabrics which have a rough or shaggy face are described as Cheviots, which has become a term denoting more a class of goods than a particular fabric. It has a slightly felted, short, even nap on the face, and is often made of "pulled wool," which is the wool taken from the pelts of dead sheep.
Mungo, shoddy, and a fair percentage of cotton enter into the composition of the yarn from which it is made. Irrespective of the quality of the yarn used, however, Cheviots are finished either with a "rough" or a close finish. The weave may either be plain or twill.
Chiffon.—A sheer silk tissue of plain weave and soft finish. The word is often used to indicate light weight and soft finish, as Chiffon Velvet.
Chinchilla.—A fabric made of fine wool, having a surface composed of small tufts closely united. The name is Spanish for a fur-bearing animal of the mink species, and the fabric is an imitation of the fur.
Chiné.—Warp-printed: a fabric wherein the design, being printed on the warps, appears somewhat faintly and in indefinite outline. The weft is not printed, but is generally in the white. Some varieties, occasionally met with, have a coloured weft. This class of fabric is also known as a Shadow Cretonne, when the designs are of the variety generally used in Cretonne fabrics.