In this connection, as reliable and comprehensive a list as it is convenient to gather is placed before the reader; although, from the varied character of cotton cloth, many specialities are omitted, such, maybe, as those cloths used in the hat trade for lining, the oilcloths, umbrella cloths, and numerous milliners’ and drapery requirements for the home trade.
CHAPTER VI.
FANCY WEAVING, TAPPET AND DOBBY WORK, ANALYSIS OF CLOTH, TAPPETS, CLOTH, DOBBIES, DOBBY CLOTH, GAUZE, HANDKERCHIEF MOTION.
An important and increasingly successful department of cotton manufacturing is that comprised under the heading of fancy work. Here a great amount of skill and intelligence is necessary, and in the more complicated goods a display of talent uncalled for in the limited and well-trodden ways of plain manufacturing. In fancy weaving not only do we come across the variations of manufacturing details which present themselves in the ordinary branches, but, in addition, an infinite variety of patterns and different designs crowd upon the one side, while on the other an artistic eye is required to combat with and blend the varied groups of colours and shades in harmony and beauty.
A moment’s reflection will remind the reader of the great number of the cotton cloths which come under the heading of fancies, and for purposes of convenience we must treat of them under the headlines of three chapters—Simpler fancies, Jacquard and complicated fancies and Checks.
Classification of Cloth.
Woven fabrics of any material may be divided into four main classes:—Plain, figured, gauze and woven pile cloths; laces formed on an entirely different structure being disregarded.