Fabric Terms

The trademarked name, dating from 1960, of a nylon fiber. The trademark was originally held by Dupont is and now held by INVISTA (used as commercial carpet fiber). Dupont’s Antron nylon III dates to 1970. See Nylon

Courtelle is a trademarked name for an acrylic fiber. The trademark was originally owned by the British company Courtaulds, but after that company was broken up in 1990, the trademark registration went to Rowlinson Knitwear, also based in the UK.

The now-defunct British chemical company Imperial Chemicals Industries Ltd. (ICI) developed and trademarked Crimplene in the 1950s. The thick polyester yarn is called Crimplene as is fabric made from this yarn. The yarn can be woven, but was most usually seen in a double knit. Crimplene fabric is heavy, wrinkle-resistant, wash-and-wear and easy to sew. The decade of the 1960s was Crimplene’s heyday (it made many an A-line dress) with lighter-weight polyester beginning to supersede

A ditsy print is a very small scale all-over pattern with a random look, not linear or geometric. Flowers are often depicted, but are not exclusively used. American textile manufacturers, particularly from the 1920s through 40s, mass-produced cotton ditsies, dumb-dumbs and bread-and-butters. These were popular and inexpensive, and the names refer to their innocuousness, as well as their saleability.

Although hand sewn homespun cloth bags were used for grain, feed, sugar, and flour from the early 1800s, the invention of the sewing machine in the mid 1800s made stitching quicker and seams stronger. Textile mills began producing inexpensive cotton fabric for feedsacks. Bags soon went from homemade and reused to mass-produced and the markings on the bags went from farmers’ brands to the brands of the commodity producers. When these bags were empty, penny-wise

See Hair fiber

Wool is obtained from sheep, but the name hair fiber is used to indicate fiber obtained from animals other than sheep. The animals from which hair fiber is gathered include angora goats (from which we get mohair), cashmere goats (cashmere), angora rabbit (angora), alpaca, camel, and vicuña. More recently the ancient Tibetan craft of spinning yarn from yak fiber (khullu) has become globally known.

See Hair fiber

See Wool

Very popular in the last several decades of the 19th century, mill engravings were intricate prints made by hand engraving steel rollers, which would then be used to emboss larger copper rollers by repeating the pattern evenly over the entire roller. Copper was not as durable as steel, but steel was hard and difficult to engrave. When the copper roller became worn, the original steel pattern would be used again on the smoothed-off copper roller,

See Hair fiber

A shadowy printing effect (shadow print is synonymous) achieved by printing warp yarns before weaving. The print is slightly displaced in the weaving process, creating blurry edges. See also: Ikat Chiné

See Hair fiber

Woven fabric consists of warp and weft yarns crossing each other one at a time or in groups. Plain weave always consists of one warp yarn crossing one weft yarn, a 1/1 weave. When two warp yarns cross a weft yarn, this can be indicated as 2/1 weave. 2/2 weave has two warp yarns crossing two weft yarns. These fractions are read, for example, “three up, one down” for 3/1, indicating that three weaving harnesses

Experimentation toward creating a man-made fiber out of tree pulp dates to around 1860, but only in 1894 was the production of the fiber cellulosic acetate patented—by Arthur D. Little of Boston. It was the second manufactured cellulosic fiber, following rayon, and it was used for film, celluloid plastic and “artificial silk” (as both rayon and acetate were called at that time). The brothers Camille and Henri Dreyfus of Switzerland were the first to develop

See Acrylic

Acrylic, a synthetic fiber, was developed in 1941 by the DuPont Corporation, and introduced to the public in the early 50s. DuPont trademarked acrylic using the name Orlon, while the British company Courtalds trademarked the name Courtelle. Acrylic is used as a soft and warm wool-like staple fiber, most often for sweaters, blankets, and other uses one would expect for wool. It can also be made to imitate cotton. Acrilan (Monsanto) and Creslan (American Cyanamid)

See Hair fiber

See Azlon

See Azlon