Fig. 198
Fig. 199
The weaver takes a strip of the pattern and puts it through a widened split in the reed and pins one end of it to the cloth; to the other end he attaches a cord and light weight, which he hangs over the back rail of the loom so that the strip of design will be held steady and move forward as the cloth is drawn up. The strip must be pinned to the cloth so that the first check of the design projects over the fell of the cloth. Suppose the strip to be A, [Fig. 199]: C is the first check; the weaver sees that this is black, and proceeds to weave the gauze with black weft for the length of this check (one-seventh of an inch). The next check, moving along the strip in the loom, or from left to right on the design, is a different colour, say scarlet; the weaver changes his shuttle and weaves as many checks as there are of this colour, which in this case is only one. Another change of shuttle is made, and so on till the end of the strip is reached; it is then turned, the other end of it being brought to the fell of the cloth, and the checks on the second line of the design are woven in order as before, only they must run from right to left on the design instead of from left to right, as the first line did, which will be caused by the turning of the strip of paper; for it must be borne in mind that if the first shot of chenille weft is put into the carpet from left to right, the next one will be put in from the reverse side or from right to left, so that all the odd numbers of lines on the design-paper should be begun by the weft weaver at the left-hand side, and all the even numbers at the right-hand side, provided the weaver works in this way; in any case one must be the reverse of the other. When all the strips of the pattern are woven, each rib of the piece of weft will be long enough to weave as many shots as are in one repeat of the pattern, and if there be 40 ribs in the piece, it would, when cut up, furnish weft for 40 repeats of the pattern. For weaving this weft large needles are used, somewhat similar to netting needles, which are about 4 ft. long for wide looms; the chenille is wound on these, free from twist, and must be put on so that it will come off correctly to suit the pattern. The strips of chenille are marked to show which end is to be put on the needle first. These needles are pushed through the shed by the weaver when weaving the carpet—put in at one side and drawn out at the other. He lays in the weft as correctly as possible, combing it up to the fell of the cloth, and makes the colours fall in nicely together, drawing it tighter or leaving it slacker as is necessary. Now the advantage of using the special design-paper will be more readily understood. It is plain that if 14 by 7 design-paper be used, instead of 7 by 7, any of the colours may be changed in 1/14 in. on the design; and also in the chenille weaving, when it is desirable to do so, instead of in each 1/7 in. when 7 by 7 paper is used. And if 20 by 7 paper were used, the changes might be still more frequent; besides, in flowing patterns the advantage also comes in to assist in getting the forms more correct, in the same way as paper over square in either warp or weft assists in getting the form of the figure in damask designing over that where only the coarser way of the paper square is used; though the effect is not by any means so satisfactory as if the paper were finer both ways, and square. Yet when one way is fixed by circumstances it is in many cases preferable to alter it in the other way than to leave both alike coarse; but not always so, as, for example, the pattern given in [Fig. 199]. When these carpets are woven they are passed through a shearing machine, which makes the surface of the pile quite level. They are rich handsome carpets, as well as very durable.