SILK FABRICS, ARTIFICIAL. (For modern develop ments, see SYNTHETIC . FIBRES.) Except in the production of knitted and lace goods, as well as a small variety of woven luxury fabrics of the most delicate texture, artificial silk was only em ployed successfully when in combination with threads produced from the natural textile fibres which constituted a foundation texture of sufficient stability according to the specific use for which the fabric was intended. It should be realized, therefore, that the special function of artificial silk (so far as the textile industry was concerned) was that of embellishing and enriching textile fabrics of any description that permitted decorative treat ment.
Artificial silk was employed in conjunction with cotton in any combination. Also, the warp and weft were interwoven in order to develop any desired textural or woven effect from the simplest and most elementary weaves. Fabrics were also produced either as simple or compound structures and decorated with simple figuring. Again, artificial silk threads either of the same colour or any number of different colours were introduced in place of the ordinary warp and weft threads, or as extra threads of warp and weft, in order to produce simple or variegated stripes.
great care was taken, when preparing an applied design for the card-cutter, to ensure thorough interlacement of the threads, and also to avoid floats of inordinate length. This precaution was especially necessary for fabrics subject to wear or friction, since, owing to the multi-filament structure of artificial silk threads, the fine filaments were easily caught up and broken. As a general rule, the decorative features of a woven fabric were developed with much greater success with the warp than with the weft series of threads, for the practical reason that, during the operation of weaving, the warp threads were under much more complete con trol and tension than the weft. Consequently, the warp series of
threads lay much straighter and firmer in the fabric, and thus produced a more perfectly flat and even surface than could be obtained by employing weft for figuring purposes. Moreover, not only did the greater tension of the warp threads tend to effect a better distribution of the fine filaments composing those threads, and thus ensure a more complete "covering" of the weft, but the additional tension (by keeping the threads straight) also increased their power of reflection, which enhanced their lustre. Further, the employment of warp instead of weft (whenever the choice of these alternatives was optional and solely for decorative effect, as distinct from technical and practical considerations) was a more economical policy from the manufacturers' point of view; besides it incurred a smaller percentage of waste material.