WEAVING. We shall glance rapidly over this subject in the following order :—Plain Weaving; Pattern Weaving ; Doable Weaving ; Cross Weaving ; Chain Weaving ; Pile Weav ing; Power Weaving.
Plain Weaving.—Calico, Irish linen, and plain silk, are good representatives of this kind of weaving. In the language of weavers, the long threads are called, according to cir cumstances, warp, twist, Caine, or organzine ; while the cross threads are called seefl, woof, shoot, or tram. We shall here use the simple terms warp and weft. The warp is always affixed to the loom or weaving machine ; while the weft is contained in 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. Supposing there to be 1000 threads in the width of a piece of cloth ; then the yarn, wound on the bobbins as it leaves the hand 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 warping-frame is now employed, in which the threads are arranged by means of a frame revolving on a vertical axis. When the warp is arranged around this machine, the warper takes it off and winds it on a stick into a ball, preparatory to the process of beaming, or winding it on the beam of the loom. The threads, in this latter process, are wound as evenly as possible on the beam; a separator, ravel, or comb being used to lay them parallel, and to spread them out to about the intended width of the cloth. Arrangements are then made for drawing, or attaching the warp-threads individually-to cer tarn mechanism of the loom. In this process all the threads are attached to stays fixed to two frames called heddles, in such a manner that all the alternate 'threads (1st, 3rd, 5th, &c.) can be drawn up or down by one heddle, and all the rest (2nd, 4th, Gth, &c.) by the other.
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 heddles 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 suffi cient 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 he drives up the thread of weft close to those previously thrown. One thread of weft is thus completed, and the weaver pro ceeds 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 throw ing the shuttle from left to right, instead of from right to left. In the commonest mode of weaving the shuttle is thrown by both hands alternately ; but about a century ago John Kay invented the fly-shuttle, in which a string and handle sre so placed that the weaver can work the shuttle both ways with one hand.
In weaving plain silks, calicoes, and other webs of moderate width, there are two leaves of heddles and two treadles, for dividing the warp into two parcels. In weaving broader webs, such as floor-cloth canvas, the heddles and treadles are more powerful. In weaving ribbons, galloons, &c., the engine-loom is em ployed, noticed under RIBAND.
Pattern. Weaving. — Pattern-weaving has many varieties, in which different colours are combined by weaving. If all the threads of the warp are of one colour, and all those of the weft another colour, it produces the pecu liar effect called shot patterns. A stripe is a pattern in which parallel lines run either along or across the warp ; while a checks is an alter nation of rectangles like a chess-board, or more properly like the varieties of Scotch plaid. The production of a stripe depends either upon the warper or the weaver ; the production of a check depends upon both. [CHECK.] In the twill, which includes satin, bomhazeen, kerzeymere, &c., the weft-threads pass over one warp-thread and under two, over one and under three, or over one and under eight or ten, according to the kind of twill; the effect of this is, to produce a kind of diagonal ribbed appearance, either on the right' or the wrong ' side of the cloth, and a smooth and glossy appearance on the other, according as the one thread is crossed above or below by the weft. [BomEAznErt ; CHECK.] To produce such results, more than two leaves of heddles are required, and more than two treadles to work them ; and the weaver's loom is a much more complicated machine than that for plain weaving.