Dimity.—A fine cotton fabric, plain or printed, having a cord design running lengthways of the piece. The figures are often arranged in alternate stripes and appear as if embossed, this effect being due to the coarse weft "flushes." A cheaper kind is sometimes made by arranging a reversed woven stripe of warp-face and weft-face twill on a plain ground texture.
Discharge Printing.—In what is known as the "discharge" style of printing, the cloth is first impregnated throughout its whole substance by being either vat-dyed or pad-dyed; then the cloth is dried, but the colour is not fixed. It is next passed through the printing machine, and chemicals having the property of preventing the development are printed on it, either alone or in combination with other colouring matters. The ground colour is then developed by steaming, and the printed pattern, white or coloured, is obtained upon a coloured ground.
Dobbie, or Dobby.—This name is used to describe a type of loom used for the production of certain classes of figured fabrics which have a great many points of similarity with fabrics produced by means of a Jacquard loom. The distinctive feature of a Dobby loom is the series of lattices into which pegs are inserted, which control the lifting of heald shafts in their proper order, so as to form the shed, the heald shafts being pulled down again by means of springs after having been lifted up to form a shed.
Domestics.—This term is used in the textile producing districts of Great Britain to denote a class of medium and heavy weight grey cloths, plain or twill woven, the better qualities of which are not exported but used for home or domestic consumption.
Domet.—A strong, heavy, twill-woven cotton fabric resembling Canton or Cotton Flannel, having a raised or napped surface on both sides of the fabric. Domet may be either in the grey or white and is a plain fabric.
Double Cloth Weave.—Where two single cloths are so woven that they are combined together and make but one, it becomes known as a Double Cloth and is the result of double-cloth weaving.
Double Cloth is woven either to obtain two well-defined and finished faces or to allow of a heavy material being made with a good quality face and with the back made up of a cloth composed of inferior material. This style of weaving is resorted to when the object is to produce certain kinds of bulky or heavy overcoating.
Double Sole, Heel, and Toe means an extra thread added to hosiery at points mentioned. Strictly speaking, "double" applies only to single-thread goods.
Double Warps.—The name double warp is used to designate various kinds of fabrics of good quality in which the warp threads consist of two-fold yarn. Not to be mistaken as designating two-ply or double-weave fabrics.