Matelassé.—A heavy compound-weave figured cloth, having a raised pattern, as if quilted or wadded.
Matt Weave.—Similar to a plain or one-over-one weave, with this difference, that instead of lifting one thread at a time two are lifted over two. It might be described as a double plain weave. This style of weave is noticeable in some varieties of embroidery canvas.
Medium Cloth (Woollen).—This is an all-wool fabric, plain woven from a wool weft and wool warp. In width it varies from 54 to 74 inches and in length from 19 to 36 yards per piece. The average value of this fabric per yard for the period 1904 to 1914 was 4s. 3d.
This fabric approximates to, and by some is said to be identical with, Broad, Habit, and Russian Cloth.
Mélange.—The French word for "mixture." Name given to a yarn produced from printed tops. This class of yarn can be distinguished from Mixture Yarn in that many fibres have more than one colour upon them. In Mixture Yarn each fibre would only have one colour.
Melton.—Stout, smooth woollen cloth, similar to Broadcloth, but heavier. A heavily milled woollen in which the fibres have been raised, then the piece cut bare to obtain the typical Melton. Both light and heavy Meltons are made with cotton warp and woollen weft.
Mercerised Cotton.—Cotton fibre roughly resembles a tube which, being hollow and collapsed on itself, presents an uneven, twisted, tape-like appearance with a good many surface markings.
By chemical treatment (mercerising) with caustic soda, and the application of tension at the right period of the treatment, remarkable changes in the structure and appearance of the cotton fibre are produced. It is made to swell, to become more transparent, to lose its twisted tube-like appearance, and to become more lustrous, translucent, and elastic. Mercerised cotton gives an impression of silk to the naked eye, its microscopic appearance being changed, the fibre having swelled out and assumed a rounded rod-like appearance which, whilst resembling silk, still differs from silk by the absence of the characteristic swellings so distinctive to silk.