Cloths Woven by Tappets.
Among the cloths woven on tappets there are twills, cloths in which a figure is woven diagonally across the cloth by raising the healds consecutively. They are in large variety, being woven on three shafts upwards and not confined to the lifting of a single heald at each pick; as in some cloths two or three out of a larger number may be raised, but the same number is up at every pick, although moving one end or more at each pick. A serge is a modification of a simple twill woven in this manner. [Fig. 44] represents a 4-shaft twill rising one in four, while [Fig. 45] shows a 4-end twill rising two in four, called a denim, swansdown, or cashmere twill. The satin weave is a broken twill—that is, instead of lifting consecutively at each pick, an end, or in some cases two ends, are passed over, as shown in [Fig. 39] (sateen). The ends are lifted in this order: 1, 3, 5, 2, 4. A 5-stave, showing a weft satin, is the standard for sateen. The satin or broken twill applies to any number of twill staves—e.g., a 12-stave satin, passing 4 ends over, lifts 1, 6, 11, 4, 9, 2, 7, 12, 5, 10, 3, 8.
A perfect satin never shows contiguous ends lifting together, as such would give a “spotty” appearance. As almost all the weft shows at one side of the cloth, the parallelism of the threads gives to this weave its well-known lustre, but unless fine yarns and reed with heavy pick are used a very frail structure is the resultant.
Stripes are of various kinds. The herring-bone or reversed twill forms an undulating pattern by using a point draft. Simple figures, on not more than six or eight staves, woven cramped between stripes of plain, are called doriah stripes.
Pile Cloths.
FIG. 46.
Velveteens are woven by motions similar to the one in [Fig. 46], generally on six staves. The object aimed at in this cloth is to produce a firm ground cloth with picks of pile weft floating over several ends of warp. Pile picks are inserted between plain or twill ground picks and are firmly bound in at intervals, so that when the floating portion is slit by the cutter the pile threads will not be loose. In the uncut cloth a slight rib of weft is seen transversely. A pattern of velveteen is given at [Fig. 46]. Velveteen is classed with the figured cloths, for as it leaves the loom it presents no appearance which warrants other classification. The fourth class of fabrics—woven piles—is woven in an entirely different manner. A wire is inserted in every fourth shed instead of weft; picks of weft are then put in and the wire withdrawn. As it carries a knife, the loops of warp over the wire are cut as it is pulled out, leaving a pile on the cloth, the length of which is perfectly regular, differing from the weft pile velveteen in this respect. The wires are inserted and withdrawn by additional mechanism attached to the loom.