Piece Goods Manual / Fabrics described; textile, knit goods, weaving terms, etc., explained; with notes on the classification of samples.

by A. E. Blanco

Oxford.—Originally a wool fabric in dark grey and white mixtures. Of late years heavy cotton and linen fabrics have been known by this name.

Oxford Shirting.—This fabric is an all-cotton fabric woven with a plain-weave ground and ornamented by the introduction of broken twill or fancy twill weave. It is woven with white and coloured yarns, which go to make the pattern or design—which in the main takes the form of stripes—of broken twill weave running lengthways of the material. Where the design is produced by printing, the material would not be an Oxford Shirting, but would more correctly be classed as an "imitation" or "printed" Oxford.

Oxford Shirting has been described as "a matt weave of coloured yarns, forming small checked effects or basket effects." As the name shows, it is extensively used in the making of shirts and ranges in quality from a low-grade to a high-quality fabric.

Padded Back Linings.—When a fabric is printed black on one side, or backed, to prevent the printed pattern on the face of the cloth from showing through, it is known as a Padded Back Lining. A natural back lining is a solid-coloured lining printed on one side only. This class of fabric is generally woven from all-cotton yarns, but may include fabrics which contain wool, silk, or other fibres.

Pad-dyeing.—Fabrics are generally piece-dyed after leaving the loom by being immersed in a bath of dye or colouring material. With a view to quickening more than actually cheapening the process of dyeing, "pad-dyeing" was evolved. This roughly consists in threading the cloth to be dyed into a machine the main features of which are dye baths and rubber rollers. The cloth is made to pass over rollers, dip into a dye bath and pass through rollers which squeeze out the superfluous dye, allowing same to fall back into the dye bowl or bath. In "pad-dyeing" the cloth may pass as often as six times through the dye liquor before it enters the first set of squeezers, and it may be given as many as four more passes through the liquor before the second set of squeezers are gone through; this, according to experts, gives "thorough saturation to any and all goods difficult to penetrate." It is generally recognised that any degree of saturation can be attained by the process of pad-dyeing, and cloth may be run through a machine at the rate of some 275 yards per minute and yet be well saturated. In a description of a pad-dyeing machine the nature of the operation performed by this machine is called "dyeing" and not "printing." The only difference therefore between piece-dyeing in a vat and in a pad-dyeing machine is that in the one instance the cloth is made to circulate in a dye bath or through a series of dye baths instead of being allowed to remain still in a dye vat until impregnated. The object aimed at and attained, i.e., the saturation of the cloth with a dye or colouring liquor, is identical.

All fabrics showing thorough saturation of ground colour (i.e., where both sides of the fabric are equally dyed) are considered as dyed whether they have been dyed by vat-dyeing or pad-dyeing.

Panne.—A light-weight Velvet with "laid" or flattened pile. Applied to a range of satin-faced Velvets or silk fabrics which show a high lustre, which is produced by pressure. The word panne is French for Plush.

Panung.—The nether garment of the Siamese. Made from cloth of the Papoon style or from woven or printed Checks. Papoon is a plain-woven cloth having warp and weft of different colours. It is also woven in two-and-two checking.