FIBRE

2012-01-12T11:51:00.001+06:00

TEXTILE , GARMENTS & TEXTILE MACHINERY

2012-01-08T16:36:00.000+06:00

Read it knowledge about Textile & Garments

The term “textile” derived from the Latin textiles and the French texere, meaning “to weave,” and itoriginally referred only to woven fabrics. It has, however, come to includefabrics produced by other methods. Thus, threads, cords, ropes, braids, lace,

embroidery, nets, and fabrics made by weaving, knitting, bonding, felting, or tufting are textiles. Some definitions of the term textile would also include those products obtained by the
papermaking principle that have many of theproperties associated with conventional fabrics. In addition to clothing and homefurnishings, textiles are used for such industrial products as filters to airconditioners, life rafts, conveyor belts, tents, automobile tires, swimmingpools, safety helmets and mine ventilators.

History of clothing and textiles

The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristicand is a feature of most human societies. It is not known when humansbegan wearing clothes. Anthropologists believe that animal skins andvegetation were adapted into coverings as protection from cold, heatand rain, especially as humans migrated to new climates; alternatively,covering may have been invented first for other purposes, such as magic,decoration,cult, or prestige, and later found to be practicalas well.

Clothing and textiles have been important in human history andreflects the materials available to a civilization as well as thetechnologies that it has mastered. The social significance of thefinished product reflects their culture.

Textiles, defined as felt or spun fibers made into yarn andsubsequently netted, looped, knit or woven to make fabrics, appeared inthe Middle East during the late stone age.From ancient times to thepresent day, methods of textile production have continually evolved,and the choices of textiles available have influenced how peoplecarried their possessions, clothed themselves, and decorated theirsurroundings.

Sources available for the study of the history of clothing and textiles includematerial remains discovered via archaeology; representation of textilesand their manufacture in art; and documents concerning the manufacture,acquisition, use, and trade of fabrics, tools, and finished garments.Scholarship of textile history, especially its earlier stages, is partof material culture studies.

Prehistoric development

Recent scientific research estimates that humans have been wearing clothing for as long as 190,000 years.

The development of textile and clothing manufacture in prehistoryhas been the subject of a number of scholarly studies since the late20th century, including Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean, as well as Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. Thesesources have helped to provide a coherent history of these prehistoricdevelopments. Evidence suggests that human beings may have begunwearing clothing as far back as 100,000 to 500,000 years ago.

Genetic analysis suggests that the human body louse, which lives inclothing, may have diverged from the head louse some 107,000 years ago,evidence that humans began wearing clothing at around this time.

Possible sewing needles have been dated to around 40,000 yearsago. The earliest definite examples of needles originate fromthe Solute's culture, which existed in France from 19,000 BC to 15,000BC. The earliest dyed flax fibers have been found in a prehistoric cavein the Republic of Georgia and date back to 36,000 BP.

The earliest evidence of weaving comes from impressions of textilesand basketry and nets on little pieces of hard clay, dating from 27,000years ago and found in Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic.

At a slightly later date (25,000 years) the Venus figurines weredepicted with clothing. Those from western Europe were adorned withbasket hats or caps, belts worn at the waist, and a strap of cloth thatwrapped around the body right above the breast. Eastern Europeanfigurines wore belts, hung low on the hips and sometimes string skirts.

Archaeologists have discovered artifacts from the same period thatappear to have been used in the textile arts: (5000 BC) netgauges, spindle needles and weaving sticks.

Ancient textiles and clothing

The first actual textile, as opposed to skins sewn together,was probably felt. Surviving examples of Nålebinding, another earlytextile method, date from 6500 BC. Our knowledge of ancient textilesand clothing has expanded in the recent past thanks to moderntechnological developments. Our knowledge of cultures varies greatlywith the climatic conditions to which archeological deposits areexposed; the Middle East and the arid fringes of China have providedmany very early samples in good condition, but the early development oftextiles in the Indian subcontinent, sub-Saharan Africa and other moistparts of the world remains unclear. In northern Eurasia peat bogs canalso preserve textiles very well.

Early woven clothing was often made of full loom widths draped, tied, or pinned in place.

Textiles - Making Textiles

The major steps in the manufacture of clothes are four: firstto harvest and clean the fiber or wool; second, to card it and spin itinto threads; third, to weave the threads into cloth; and, finally tofashion and sew the cloth into clothes.

Like food and shelter, clothing is a basic human requirement. Whensettled neolithic cultures discovered the advantages of woven fibersover animal hides, the making of cloth, drawing on basketry techniques,emerged as one of humankind's fundamental technologies. From theearliest hand-held spindle and distaff and basic hand loom to thehighly automated spinning machines and power looms of today, theprinciples of turning vegetable fiber into cloth have remainedconstant: Plants are cultivated and the fiber harvested. The fibers arecleaned and aligned, then spun into yarn or thread. Finally the yarnsare interwoven to produce cloth. Today we also spin complex syntheticfibers, but they are still woven together the way cotton and flax weremillennia ago.

Picking By Hand By Machine

# Picking removed foreign matter (dirt, insects,leaves, seeds) from the fiber. Early pickers beat the fibers to loosenthem and removed debris by hand. Machines used rotating teeth to do thejob, producing a thin "lap" ready for carding.

Carding By Hand By Machine

# Carding combed the fibers to align and join theminto a loose rope called a sliver. Hand carders pulled the fibersbetween wire teeth set in boards. Machines did the same thing withrotating cylinders. Slivers (rhymes with divers) were then combined,twisted, and drawn out into roving.

Spinning By Hand By Machine

# Spinning twisted and drew out the roving andwound the resulting yarn on a bobbin. A spinning wheel operator drewout the cotton by hand. A series of rollers accomplished this onmachines called "throstles" and "spinning mules."

Warping By Hand By Machine

# Warping gathered yarns from a number of bobbinsand wound them close together on a reel or spool. From there they weretransferred to a warp beam, which was then mounted on a loom. Warpthreads were those that ran lengthwise on the loom.

Weaving By Hand By Machine

# Weaving was the final stage in making cloth.Crosswise woof threads were interwoven with warp threads on a loom. A19th century power loom worked essentially like a hand loom, exceptthat its actions were mechanized.

Industrial Revolution - Timeline of Textile Machinery

Several inventions in textile machinery occurred in a relatively short time period during the industrial revolution.

1733 Flying shuttle invented by John Kay - an improvement to looms that enabled weavers to weave faster.
1742 Cotton mills were first opened in England.
1764 Spinning jenny invented by James Hargreaves - the first machine to improve upon the spinning wheel.
1764 Water frame invented by Richard Arkwright - the first powered textile machine.
1769Arkwright patented the water frame.
1770Hargreaves patented the Spinning Jenny.
1773The first all-cotton textiles were produced in factories.
1779 Crompton invented the spinning mule that allowed for greater control over the weaving process.

The History of Fabric & Textiles

Textiles are defined as the yarns that are woven or knitted to make fabrics.The use of textiles links the myriad cultures of the world and definesthe way they clothe themselves, adorn their surroundings and go abouttheir lives. Textiles have been an integral part of human daily lifefor thousands of years, with the first use of textiles, most likelyfelt, dates back to the late Stone Age, roughly 100,000 years ago.However, the earliest instances of cotton, silk and linen being toappear around 5,000 BC in India, Egypt and China. The ancient methodsof manufacturing textiles, namely plain weave, satin weave and twill,have changed very little over the centuries. Modern manufacturing speedand capacity, however, have increased the rate of production to levelsunthinkable even 200 years ago.

Trade of textiles in the ancient world occurred predominantly on theSilk Road, a winding route across lower Asia that connected theMediterranean lands with the Far East. Spanning over 5,000 miles andestablished during the Han Dynasty in China around 114 BC, the SilkRoad was an integral part of the sharing of manufactured goods,cultures and philosophies, and helped develop the great civilizationsof the world. During the Middle Ages, simple clothing was favored bythe majority of people, while finer materials such as silks and linenswere the trappings of royalty and the rich. During the 14th century,however, advances in dyeing and tailoring accelerated the spread offashion throughout Western Europe, and drastically altered the mindsetof both wealthy man and commoner alike. Clothing and draperies becameincreasingly elaborate over the next several centuries, althoughproduction methods remained largely unchanged until the invention ofsteam-powered mechanized facilities during the Industrial Revolution.From that point on, quality textiles became available to the masses ataffordable prices.

Textiles can be derived from several sources: animals, plants andminerals are the traditional sources of materials, whilepetroleum-derived synthetic fibers were introduced in the mid-20thcentury. By far, animal textiles are the most prevalent in humansociety, and are commonly made from furs and hair. Silk, wool, andpashmina are all extremely popular animal textiles. Plant textiles, themost common beingcotton, can also be made from straw, grass and bamboo.Mineral textiles include glass fiber, metal fiber and asbestos. Therecent introduction of synthetic textiles has greatly expanded thearray of options available for fabric manufacturers, both in terms ofgarment versatility and usability. Polyester, spandex, nylon andacrylic are all widely used synthetic textiles.

In addition to the multitude of textiles available for use, thereare many different methods for creating fabrics fromtextiles. Weaving is performed using a loom, typically a rectangularframe on which strands of fibers are hung and interlaced with otherfibers. Knitting involves interlacing strands of yarn with the use of aneedle, and is typically done by hand, while weaving is largelymechanized. Lacing is performed using a backing piece to create finerfabrics with open holes throughout the piece. Interlacing a yarnthrough an existing piece of woven cloth results in a layer known as apile, which is prominent in the manufacture of carpets and velvet.Finally, and by far the oldest technique, is felting, which involvessqueezing a mat of fibers together in a liquid to create a tangled,flat material.

Textiles can also be colored using a variety of techniques,including weaving together fibers of differing colors, bleaching tocreate a pure white look, stitching colored yarn through existingfabric, the use of resist dyeing, and many other ways of printingdirectly onto finished fabric. Modern dyeing methods can create fabricsof almost any color or pattern imaginable.

EQUIOX

FIBRE

TEXTILE , GARMENTS & TEXTILE MACHINERY