We shall now proceed to describe the weaving processes, classifying them under the names of Plain-wearing, Pattern-weaving, Double weaving, Cross-weaving, Chain-wearing, Pile-weaving, and Power-weaving, —giving cross references to former articles, in which some of these eubjects have been treated.
Pia in-wearing.--By this term we mean the weaving of all varieties of textile manufacture, in which the weft-threads interlace uniformly among the warp-threads without producing twills, checks, stripes, sprigs, or any variety of figures. Calico, Irish linen, and plain silk are good representatives of this kind of weaving. If we examine any of these, we shall find that the cross threads pass alternately over and under the long threads, no one thread passing over or under two other threads at once. In the language of weavers, the long threads are called warp, twist, Caine, or organzine ; while the cross threads are called weft, woof, shoot, or tram. Twist is the general term applied to the kind of yarn used for cotton warp : organzine to that for silk warp ; and some of the other terms have in like manner only partial applica tion : if therefore we speak simply of warp and weft, we shall avoid ambiguity, and be sufficiently correct for the object in view. The warp is always affixed to the loom or weaving-machine ; while the weft is contained to the shuttle, a small boat-like instrument.
The first operation consists in laying the requisite number of threads together to form the width of the cloth : this is called warping. Sup posing there to be 1000 threads in the width of a piece of cloth ; then the yarn, wound on the bobbins as it leaves the band of the spinner, must be so unwound and laid out as to form 1000 lengths, constituting when laid parallel the warp of the intended cloth. The ancient method was to draw out the warp from the bobbins at full length in an open field; and this is still practised in India and China : but the climate of Europe is too uncertain for such a method, and hence the warping frame was devised. This is a large 'Wooden frame fixed up vertically against a wall, the upright sides being pierced with holes to receive wooden pins, which project sufficiently to receive the clue or group of yarns. The warper, having placed the bobbins of yarn in an adjacent frame, ties the ends of all the threada together. and attaches them to one of the pins ; then gathering all the threads in his hand into one clue, and permitting them to slip through the fingers, he walks to the other sod of the frame, where he passes the yarns over the fixed pin. lie walks from end to end of the frame, attaching the clue of yarns to the in each time, until he has unwound from the bobbins enough yarn to form the warp. But this method, although still followed in some places, has yielded to the use of the warping-milt, a much more convenient piece of apparatus. The bobbins are placed in a frame E (jg. 1). The — — is at A, capable of revolving oo its axis, and of allowing its threads to be drawn out in a horizontal layer e. At o are two leaves of heddloa or heahls, each leaf oteteistiug of a number of strings ranged vertically attached at bottom to two treadles ri ir, and at top to a cross-bar F.
At about the middle of every heddle or string is a loop or eye, through which the warp-yarns are drawn, one through each eye; And the passing of the yarns through these loops conatitates the process of drawing. Half of the warp-yarns, that is, every alternate yarn, pees through the loops in one leaf of heddles, and the other half through the other leaf; and as the two leaves are so connected by pulleys that one rises when the other sinks, the warp becomes divided into two portions, one above the other, near the anterior end of the loom. The weaver site at 0, drives the shuttle by means of the handle r, and drives up every successive weft-thread by the batten, lay, or lathe suspended from r. However complicated the loom, the principle of action is nearly as here described.
There are three movements attending every thread of weft which the weaver throws across the warp. In the first place he presses down ' one of the two treadles, by which one of the two halves of the warp is depressed, thereby forming a kind of opening called the shed. Into this shed, at the second movement, he throws the shuttle containing the weft-thread, with sufficient force to drive it across the whole web. Then, at the third movement, he grasps the batten, which is a kind of frame carrying at its lower edge a comb-like piece having as many teeth as there are threads in the warp ; and with this ho drives up the thread of weft close to those previously thrown. One thread of weft is thus completed, and the weaver proceeds to throw another in a similar way, but in a reverse order, that is, by depressing the left treadle instead of the right, and by throwing the shuttle from left to right, instead of from right to left. In the commonest mode of weav ing the shuttle is thrown by both hands alternately ; hut about a century ago John Kay inveuted the fly-shank, in which n string and handle are so placed that the weaver can work the shuttle both ways with one hand. The fly-shuttle is illustrated in CHECK; while fig. 3 .warper, sitting at A, rotates the vertical reel or cylinder H, by means of the wheel C and the rope D. The yarns from all the bobbins, 'collected together in a group at F, there pass through a sliding piece, which through the intervention of the cord o and the revolving shaft H, rises and falls. By this arrangement it is easy to see that when the handle is turned by the warper, the clue becomes wound spirally on the reel. The diameter of the reel is so regulated, that when the spiral equals the intended length of the warp, the clue of yarns is twisted round pins at r 1, and then by a reverse motion of the handle is wound spirally down again ; and so on up and down alternately until the grouped clues of yarns constitute a sufficient number for the width of the warp. Certain minor adjustments are at the same time made, to facilitate the subsequent operations of the weaver. The more modern warping-machines we shall have to mention when we come to power-weaving.