Dimity is a cloth of smaller pretensions with regard to figure, which is arranged in stripe form. The cloth is firmly bound, and the figure somewhat raised, which gives it an embossed effect.
Brocades are jacquard cloths of fine yarns, the pattern arranged in weft spot on plain ground, or narrow stripes of spotted figures, which, when well finished, have a charming effect. The brocade is not limited to the longitudinal stripe or figure, but may be arranged as a brocade check, while the ground cloth in either case may be of plain weave. A good effect is also produced by arranging this style in diamond figures by introducing honeycomb diagonally.
Figured canvas gives a pleasing effect when dyed. The figure is woven in plain cloth, and the work between the figures shows the end cramped together alternately with open spaces, so as to give an open effect, on which the figures show to advantage.
Figured gauze cloths are woven by the jacquard. This industry is carried on to a large extent in the cotton districts of Scotland. The harness of the machine is arranged with doup leashes passing under the plain ends to the crossing thread, which is drawn through a mail corresponding to the back stave in heald gauze working. The gauze figures are shown on a plain ground and present the pattern in open work, caused by the peculiar intertwining of the warp ends indicated in a previous chapter.
Counterpanes.
The jacquard is largely used in the counterpane and quilt industry, centred in Bolton. The Marseilles and toilet quilts, with which may be associated the well-known toilet cloths, are on the double-cloth principle—a good face of plain weave in fine yarns being embossed, as it were, by a thick soft weft being woven underneath and attached to the cloth by additional warp threads. This backing weft sometimes floats outside the cloth, sometimes is bound inside just below the plain face, and at other parts the whole of the yarn is firmly united. Where the backing is brought inside, the top cloth is raised up; whilst at those places where all the ends are woven together a depression is caused. Large embossed figures may thus be shown on the cloth, although it appears to have an unbroken surface. A coarser quality is made, where both face and back wefts are coarse and from the same cop.
Perched quiltings are in this style, but the figures are small, diamond-shaped, and regular.
The honeycomb quilt, as its name implies, is a cloth with the figures on its surface formed by raised ridges both warp and weft way. This is generally woven in bleached knitting cottons, two or three-fold; and as with this weave others may be combined, and stripes of coloured worsted inserted, great scope is given to the designer.
A Grecian quilt is woven in bleached knitting cottons, and yet the coarse threads give a smooth glossy surface in consequence of the weave being on the damask principle—i.e., the figure may be formed in a weft satin while the ground is a warp satin.