Unit VIII.—FLOOR COVERINGS AND FABRICS
DRAPERY AND UPHOLSTERY FIBERS AND FABRICS
FIBERS AND THEIR ORIGINS
Fibers used in the manufacture of home furnishing materials are both of animal and of vegetable origin. The former include the true and "wild" silks; wool, or sheep's hair; mohair, the hair of the Angora goat; horsehair, chiefly from the tail and mane; and in limited quantities the hair of the cow, pig, camel, and rabbit. Vegetable fibers include cotton, rayon, flax hemp, jute, ramie, kapok, palm fibers, moss, coir, and paper made from wood pulp. Their general characteristics are discussed here.
Animal Fibers.
Silk.—True silk is produced by the mulberry silk moth of China. Just how ancient the art of sericulture and the spinning and weaving of silk may be we do not know; but there is no doubt that it had reached a state of considerable development 4,500 years ago. It reached Japan about 1,600 years ago, and India somewhat later. About the year A. D. 550 two Persian monks brought eggs of the silk worm from China to Constantinople in a hollow cane, and the western silk industry was started.
The "wild" silks are produced by other worms, feeding for the most part on other leaves than mulberry. Most of the so-called tussah silk comes from the oak-feeding tussah worm, a native of Mongolia. The fiber is coarser than that of true silk, and so difficult to dye effectively that fabrics woven from it are usually left in the natural ecru or pale brown color.
Wool.—The many varieties of sheep yield wools which differ markedly in fineness, length of staple (2 to 16 inches for use in textiles), strength, resilience, and spinning quality. Accordingly, wools are sorted and "blended" before spinning, to suit the requirements of the particular fabric to be woven. Carpetings require the fairly long staple and fairly coarse fiber found in wools from Scotland, Russia, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, China, India, and the East Indies. The unsurpassable carpet wools of Persia and Asia Minor are largely consumed locally. Carpet wools naturally differ widely in desirability and cost, as do the many processes necessary to prepare wool for the loom. These differences require emphasis from the salesman in the demonstration of concealed values.
Most carpet wools arrive at the factory in the fleece, matted, dirty, and greasy. They are blended according to formula; passed first through a machine which separates the tangled masses and beats out free dirt; then to the scouring baths, which remove all grease and other impurities; then, after passing through a series of powerful wringers, to the dryer; and finally to the picker, from which they emerge ready for spinning.