Crape Cloth, Plain.—Plain Crape Cloth is an all-cotton fabric, plain woven from hard-twisted cotton yarns and is free from any woven or printed ornamentation. The nature of the hard-twisted yarn is such that it readily shrinks or curls in length when not kept at a high tension; this, together with subsequent finishing operations, causes a considerable contraction to take place, resulting in an uneven crinkled surface, which is the chief characteristic of Crape. The crinkled surface in true Crape is obtained in several ways: (1) by combination of materials; (2) by weave combination; (3) by combination of (1) and (2); (4) by mechanical arrangements during weaving; (5) by subjecting fabrics specially constructed to a special chemical process during finishing. The cheaper grades of Crape have the crinkled effect produced by suitably prepared rollers through which the cloth is passed, and the crinkled effect in cotton Crapes is not always the result of true Crape weaving, which relies on the irregularity of the interweaving of threads to produce the Crape effect. In width Crape seldom exceeds 30 inches, but is made up in pieces of varying length.
The name is also applied to a thin, transparent, "crisp" or crumpled silk material, usually black, which is used in mourning, as well as to a sort of thin worsted material of which the dress of the clergy is sometimes made.
Crash.—A coarse plain-weave linen material in which the unevenness of the weft yarns gives a rough surface to the cloth. There are various grades of Crash, of which the coarser and more irregular kinds are used for towelling, whilst the finer are dress materials. Some Crash fabrics are woven from waste cotton.
Cravenette.—A waterproofing process applied to fabrics made of silk, wool, or cotton. Not a fabric.
Crêpe de Chine.—A sheer silk having a minute crape effect in the weave. The name in its correct acceptance applies to an all-silk fabric, but there are also cotton and silk mixed fabrics which bear this name, and at times even all-cotton fabrics have been so designated—by the retailer, at least. All the materials which are known by this name are of comparatively light weight. In practically all these fabrics the lustre is imparted by the warp yarns, which are likely to be of better silk than the filling. The filling yarns are twisted harder than for ordinary cloth. The hard twisting of any yarn will so curl up the fibres that they will not lie parallel and so will not reflect light and give lustre. All-silk Crêpe de Chine fabrics have a width of about 40 inches, whilst all-cotton and cotton and silk mixtures average 27 inches in width. The all-cotton variety is most often simply designated as Crêpe.
Crêpe Meteor.—A lustrous silk Crêpe.
Crepoline.—A fabric of a warp rib character in which the regular order of the weave is so broken as to give a "rib crape" effect.
Crépon.—A dress fabric of silk or wool in which the design is produced by using yarns having a different degree of stretch, so that portions of the fabric are crisped, crinkled, or apparently blistered, either irregularly or in set designs.