The fabric used in this branch of the indus try is not an ordinary woven cloth, but is made with a combination stitch of which the loop used in knitting forms a part, yielding an elas tic fabric which does not unravel when cut in any direction. The fabric is cut with pattern knives or dies just as with leather gloves, and the process of making is generally the same. Fabric gloves when the sewing is completed are in size fit for a giant. They are shrunk to the proper size, and this process thickens up the fabric to a certain richness and fullness of tex ture peculiar to fine gloves. The materials out of which these gloves are made, in the order of their value, are Angora, Cashmere, Alpaca and Camels' Hair yarns. The so-called "seamless' gloves are not cut out and sewed as with fabric gloves, but are knitted from fine wool threads on knitting machines. Some of the larger concerns buy their raw material in the wool and spin their own yarns as well as dye them.
Knitted gloves of the ordinary type are made with the plain knitted loop, or in the rib and tuck stitches. The hand portion is laid out on a fiat frame nine inches wide with 12 needles to the inch. The cuff is first knitted,
then the flat of the hand, leaving out the open ing for the thumb. When the fingers are reached, two strips are knit for each finger but the first, which is knit in one piece in the cen tre of the width, the two pieces for the fourth finger being on the extreme right and left sides of the width. The knitting being completed, the glove is taken from the machine and folded together on itself, along the centre line of the first finger strip, and the parts are sewed to gether along the edges of the finger pieces and along the outside of the hand. The thumb is knitted separately and sewed into place. When finished the glove is subjected to a shrinking process which thickens it up and makes it much warmer to wear. Mittens are of simpler manufacture, there being but the one seam to sew over the top and down the outside of the hand.
The imports of gloves from all countries in the fiscal year ended 30 June 1916 amounted to $4,798,943 of which three-fourths came from France and a value of $130,000 from Germany.