Nancy's Knits
Knitting Classes, Knitwear Design, Finishing, Blocking, and Repairs
Fibers and Fabrics: Their History and Common Use: A Glossary of Terms
Wool: insulating outer hairs that will be shorn or collected after
molting for use by humans to make fiber and fabric.
Nowadays, it refers mostly to the fibers collected from sheep.
Fleece:
an animal’s insulating outer hairs that are clipped off in one piece or
combed off.
Skirting:
removing extraneous vegetable matter, fibers stained by urine and feces, the
short belly and neck hairs, kemp fibers, or anything unfit for spinning.
Shearing:
removing animal fleece in one large piece.
Double-coated fleece:
consists of longer, coarser guard hairs over the softer, shorter downy
undercoat.
Guard Hairs:
the long, water-repellent coarse outer hairs of a double-coated fleece.
Alpaca:
a member of the camel family native to South America.
Its cousins include the llama,
guanaco, and vicuña.
The fibers are long but inelastic.
There are two kinds of alpaca fiber: “Huacayo” has low silvery luster
and a fine crimp, while “Suri” is bright lustrous and fine with little to no
crimp. The fleeces are usually
shorn every two years. Natural
colors range from white, to blue-gray, black, rose, beige, cinnamon brown,
and brown-black.
Angora:
a species of rabbit bred for its soft downy undercoat.
The combed fibers are short, slippery, and make yarns with high heat
retentive properties. Natural
colors range from off-white to blue-gray, to rust.
Camel:
fleece from the Asian or Bactrian (two-humped) camel that is not shorn but
collected as the animal molts.
It produces a lightweight, warm yarn but lacks the strength of wool.
Does not dye well.
Cashgora:
a crossbreed of Angora and Mohair goats with a long fiber length than
cashmere and finer fiber diameter than mohair.
It is slippery, very heat retentive, and dues well.
Cashmere:
the winter over coat of some goats distinguished by specific
characteristics. Any goat can
produce Cashmere. To be
classified as cashmere, the fier must e crimped throughout its length, be no
more than 19 microns in diameter an a minimum of 1 ¼ inches in length.
“Cashmere” goats are those who produce cashmere fiber in consistent,
significant quantities.
Mohair:
is the fiber from Angora goats.
The hairs will grow 4” to 6” in six months and are usually shorn twice a
year. “Tight lock” or “fall
kid” is the animal’s first clip, usually at 6 or 7 months.
“Spring kid” is clipped at 12 months.
“Yearling” mohair is clipped at 18 months.
“Adult” mohair is any fiber clipped after 18 months.
Fiber diameter and coarseness increase with the animal’s age.
“Kid mohair” is the finest and most expensive.
Mohair is lustrous and stronger than wool with a broad crimp.
It has superior loft and halo, is resilient and will not wrinkle or
shrink. The Dictionary of
Needlework published in 1882, describes mohair cloth worn in the Middle
Ages, used b y the French for lace, the Dutch for Utrecht for velvets, and
by everyone for clothing.
Quiviut:
the collected downy undercoat of the Arctic Muskox.
Extremely fine and highly insulating, Quiviut is the world’s most
expensive fiber.
Silk:
the double-stranded extrusion of the larval stage of the cultivated
Bombyx mori moth or wild caterpillars (tussah) that the
caterpillar uses to construct its cocoon.
The silk comes out of the spinnerets in tiny figure eights that
overlap and form a dense fiber.
A gummy coating of sericin on the silk thread causes the cocoon to
stick together. The single
thread composing each cocoon is approximately 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) long.
Silk is inelastic, extremely strong, dyes well, and is the world’s
second strongest natural fiber after spider webbing.
Other Exotic Animal Fibers/Products:
Bighorn sheep, grizzly bear, deer sinew, mink, sable, chinchilla, cat, dog,
horse fetlocks, puma, beaver.
Wool:
in this case, the shorn outer coat of any breed of sheep.
While all sheep brow woolly fleeces, not all wools are suitable for
spinning into fiber yarns; sheep raised for meat generally do not yield wool
suitable for fabric manufacture.
There are three main systems to classify wool: “blood” system,
“count” system,” and “micron” system.
The “blood” system was originally derived from fine Merino
wool and Rambouillet sheep.
Their wool was called “fine.”
If a sheep was one-half Rambouillet or Merino, and half another breed, the
resulting fibers were almost always coarser or thicker than the pureblood.
These wools were called “one-half blood.”
The numerical “count” system is a classification of wool in
terms of fiber diameter. The
“count” refers to the number of 560-yard hanks of yarn that can be spun from
one pound of wool top.
The “micron” system measures the average fibber diameter in a
given lot.
The two basic properties of wool are scale, a measure of how
readily the wool will felt, and crimp or the fiber’s natural
waviness, which affects elasticity and loft.
The length of wool fibers ranges from 2” for fine Merino to 12” for
Lincoln. Some sheep breeds that
produce spinnable wools include: Border Leicester, Churro, Icelandic,
Karakul, Lincoln, Romney, Cheviot, Columbia, California Variegated Mutant
(CVM), Corriedale, Dorset, Hampshire, Suffolk, Oxford, Merino, Rambouillet,
Polwarth, Targhee, Cormo, Bond, Shetland, and Jacob.
Some breeds originating in Great
Britain (currently endangered and/or protected) include:
Cheviot, Dorset Horn, Down, Blueface
Leicester, Shetland, Cotswold, and Black Welsh Mountain.
Seed fibers: Cotton, Kapok, and Milkweed.
These grow as appendages to seeds or
inside seed pods. They make
good stuffing or padding if collceted in sufficient quantity.
Cotton is the only seed fiber that can be processed into serviceable
yarn. Cotton is almost pure
cellulose. Other plant fibers
have lesser percentages of cellulose.
Stem or Bast Fibers: Flax, Ramie, Jute, Hemp, Nettle, Basswood, and Cedar.
These plants form long strands under
the inner bark of their stems.
Also called soft fibers, they are noted for their flexibility, ease of
spinning, and durability.
Leaf Fibers: Sisal
also called Agave. These
are called hard fibers because they’re stiffer and more brittle than bast
fibers. Their primary use is
for cordage (rope).
Wood Fibers: Rayon and Viscose:
These are man-made products.
The raw materials are extracted from trees, coarse plants, and waste
wood-pulp.
Cotton:
Genus Gossypium of the mallow family.
There are over 3 dozen species of wild and cultivated cotton plants.
It grows only in a narrow band of climates close to the equator.
Some of the oldest cotton samples date from 3000 B.C.
The US is the world’s largest producer and exporter of cotton.
Types of cotton include: Sea Island, Upland, American Pima, Egyptian,
and Asiatic. Colors include:
white, ivory, beige to dark brown, green, yellow pink, and blue.
White cotton was originally a mutation of brown.
Natural color stocks are typically too short for commercial
preparation and spinning. Some
natural colors have been hybridized by botanist Sally Fox into FoxFibre®
cotton plants.
Flax:
linum usitatissimum,
the bast plant used to produce linens yarns.
Flax seeds are better known as linseeds.
It was used by the Egyptians and is often mentioned in the Bible.
10,000 years ago, Swiss Lake Dwellers spun and wove fibers of natural
flax.
Hemp:
cannabis satira,
of the mulberry family. One of
the first plants cultivated as a fiber source, mostly in Russia and Asia.
Chinese texts dating to 2800 B.C. mention hemp production.
In the US, hemp agriculture was outlawed in 1937.
The hemp plant has a wide range of uses from medicinal, to food, to
clothing, to cordage. The
leaves and other plant tissues produce a resin from which the active
ingredient THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is extracted.
Crushed and dried hemp is usually smoked in cigarettes or pipes and
goes by the names: hashish, charas, dagga, bhang, ganja, kef, marijuana,
pot, tea, grass, and Mary Jane.
The fibers are durable, resist rotting, and produce soft, lustrous fabrics
that dye well.
Jute:
genus Corchorus of the basswood family.
Around 40 species grow in Africa and Asia.
Kapok:
bombax family, also called silk cotton.
Kenaf:
Hibiscus cannabinus,
an annual bast plant that grows 10 feet tall.
Treated like flax and hemp.
Milkweed:
asclepias,
a perennial North American wildflower.
Nettle:
Urtica diocia,
used since the Bronze Age in Europe to weave sails for boats and mesh
fabrics for sifting flower and filtering honey.
Ramie:
also known as China Grass, represents two varieties of nettle: Ramie
Bohemia nivea var. nivea and Rhea Bohemia nivea
var. tenasissima. Used
in China and Southeast Asia since ancient time.
Introduced to European textile mills in the 1850’s.
Since 1980’s there has been renewed interest, especially since the
development of nettle varieties without prickles.
Ramie is a stronger fiber than either cotton or flax, is smooth,
lustrous, and absorbs and releases moisture readily.
Often used as a blend in summer clothing.
Miscellaneous:
various palm plants; these fibers are used most often for baskets, hats, and
brushes.
Grease Fleece:
unwashed animal fiber.
Skirting:
removing extraneous vegetable matter, animal wastes, stained, coarse, and
too short fibers prior to processing.
Pricking:
manual or mechanical fluffing of fiber locks prior to carding.
Carding:
brushing small quantities of fiber to both remove small amounts of
extraneous material and align the fibers prior to spinning.
Carding does not sort fibers of different lengths.
Hand Cards:
a set of two curved fiber preparation brushes with many short, fine, steel
wires embedded into a lined wooden face. Flickers: hand cards for
very fine fibers used to gently separate individual locks immediately prior
to spinning.
Combing:
a set of two straight fiber preparation tools with one, two, or three
parallel sets of elongated teeth set into a wooden pr metal base.
Viking Combs have one of the set stationary while the other is
wielded by hand. They are
usually stainless steel; English Combs are most often longer then
Vikings, are usually carbon steel, and are wielded with both hands.
Twist Direction:
either clockwise Z-Twist or
counter-clockwise S-Twist.
Important because fibers twisted in one direction will wrap firmly
around each other when twisted together in the opposite direction.
Some plant fibers have an inherent direction of twist.
Drop Spindle:
hand tool for sinning and plying
yarns; a central staff with a weighted “spindle” to provide stability and
extra speed. Variations
include: Navajo spindles, Turkish spindles, kick spindles, and high whorl
spindles.
Spinning Wheel:
machine to spin fibers.
The operator controls the speed and thickness of the finished
product. A spinning wheel is
faster by the day but slower by the month than a drop spindle.
Types include: Saxony
wheel, Great or Walking Wheel, and Charka Wheel.
Distaff:
means to carry large quantity of unspun fiber.
Niddy Noddy:
T-shaped instrument used to wrap
hanks of spun yarn.
Diz:
small plate with hold in the middle
used to draw sliver out of
combed fiber.
Batt:
carded fiber when removed from
carding machine or hand cards.
Rolag:
carded fiber batt rolled into cigar
shape.
Punis:
carded cotton fibers rolled into
compact roll for Charka spinning
Roving:
lengths of woolen prepared fiber
Sliver:
lengths of worsted (combed) prepared fiber
Retting:
the process of soaking bast fibers
to rot and loosen the outer bark and dissolve pectin that glues together
inner strands. “Dew-retted”
fibers are spread on grass or rooftops to absorb nightly dew.
This takes 3-5 weeks and produces a silvery fiber.
Water-retted fibers are submerged in ponds, lakes, or streams.
This takes 4-12 days and produces a golden fiber.
Breaking:
the process of cracking the outer
bark of retted flax stems and separating the woody core into lengthwise
pieces.
Scutching:
scraping to remove chaff and straw
left after breaking process
Hackling or
Hetcheling:
drawing prepared (retted, broken,
and scotched) flax through a series of finer and finer combs to separate the
stem fibers for spinning.
Knitting:
yarn manipulation using two
single-pointed or three, four, or five double-pointed needles.
The fabric consists of interlocking loops that can be enhanced with
stitch patterning and color.
Knitting was introduced into Europe and Asia via trade routes and political
expansion. The earliest
examples of knitting date to 1200 AD.
Knitting flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and
later became a suitable pastime for ladies.
Netting:
ancient technique that predates
weaving and twining. Netting
began during the Neolithic Age and was used to make fishnets, snares, head
coverings, and ceremonial skirts for women and young girls.
Knotting:
ladies’ pastime in the seventeenth
and eighteenth century Western Europe and colonial North America.
Using a small shuttle, knots are made in lengths of string linen,
silk, or wool. The thread is
then applied to a ground fabric, forming patterns or covering it completely.
Sewing:
attaching two or more layers of
fabric by means of one or more threads woven through the layers.
Crochet:
French for “a small hook.” Yarn
manipulation using a single needle with a hook at one end that forms a
looped fabric. The loops are
locked laterally as well as vertically.
Known in Britain by the end of the eighteenth century, gained immense
popularity during the Victorian Age.
Embroidery:
a method of decorating an existing
structure (usually fabric, but parchment or bark has been used).
Can be done by hand or machine (the latter since the 19th
century). Embroidery excludes
simple seaming and sewing machine stitches, and also needlework techniques
such as knitting and crochet.
Patterns may be flat or raised, colors on a plain or patterned background.
Threads can be removed from the background to form additional
patterns.
Lace-making:
an openwork fabric constructed by
looping, twisting, or plaiting threads with a needle or bobbin.
Usually constructed independently.
True lace was first made no earlier than the late 15th
century. Finest quality laces
were made in Italy, France, and Belgium.
Lace can be made from silk and linen, although cotton and wool have
been used for “peasant” laces.
Lace making was mechanized in the late 19th century.
Felting:
produced by the compression of
fibers, usually wool, no weaving or twining.
One of the earliest forms of textiles (5th century BC),
felt is known in many parts of the world.
Felt’s advantages are its flexibility and ability to mold, also an
excellent insulator.
Weaving:
After felting, weaving is the oldest known method of producing fabric.
All woven fabric is produced on some kind of loom, a device
that holds a series of lengthwise threads under tension while additional
fibers are manipulated into a fixed position at right angles to the
lengthwise direction. Some
historically important types of looms are lap loom, horizontal ground
loom, band loom, warp-weighted loom, draw loom, and jacquard loom.
Warp:
lengthwise threads that must be held
under steady tension.
Weft:
crosswise threads, interlaced with
warp threads to form fabric.
Shed:
space between the warp setts
Sett:
the numbers of warp threads per inch
Heddle:
series of small holes or loops through which the warp yarns pass.
The heddle raises and lowers sections of the warp, creating the shed
for the weft.
Treadles:
foot pedals used to raise and lower
the heddles
Shuttle:
carries weft yarn
Dressing a loom:
the process where warp yarns are threaded onto a loom.
Selvedge:
side edges where the weft passes
around the outer warps
Plain Weave:
also called tabby, the
simplest of all weaves. Each
warp interlaces with each weft, making a strong, somewhat stiff weave.
Used in most commercial fabrics, it is also the foundation for other
types of weaving patterns.
Twill Weave:
overlapped and staggered warp and
weft threads that produce diagonal lines in the material
Satin Weave:
similar to irregular twills, used
mostly as a basis for damask and brocade fabrics.
The top surface is smooth and shiny.
Double Weave:
two layers of fabric woven
simultaneously, one on top of the other.
Reversible.
Tapestry:
a woven picture, typically worked
sideways. Tapestry is defined
as a weft-faced lain weave with discontinuous wefts.
Usually associated with pictorial wall hangings of medieval Europe.
Tapestries were also made by the Egyptians, Chinese, and by early
cultures of Central and South America.
Velvet:
a simple or compound weave enhanced
with a supplementary warp over a series of small rods.
When the rods are removed, small loops remain, which can then be cut.
Brocade:
a simple, compound, or velvet weave
with extra sets of yarns floating on the cloth surface.
Used to produce complex, colorful fabrics.
Rug Weaving:
flat or Kilim rugs that are tapestry
woven. May also include felted
rugs, brocaded rugs or “soumak” and pile rugs.
Stain:
fugitive coloration
Dye:
permanent coloration
Mordant:
chemical pretreatment that allows complete precipitation of pigment onto
fiber. In older times, these
included: tree resin, egg white, blood, saliva, turpentine, glues, urine,
sear water, or wax. Modern
mordants include: alum, tin, chrome, copper, iron, ammonia bath, and
tartaric acid (cream of tartar.)
Even before spinning and weaving, colored earth, plant saps and juices were
applied to skin, invoking magic to protect, to heal, or to endow courage and
strength for a coming battle.
Identification of medicinal and pigment properties of plants and minerals
occurred through trial and error.
Cultures often associated certain colors with cosmic and/or religious
symbols, status, or superstition.
Substantitive Dyes:
both water soluble and direct in
dyeing. Examples are lichens
(orchil, also called dyer’s moss), turmeric, safflower, annatta, and
barberry.
Direct Dyes:
the color of the solution is
transferred directly to the fiber and is permanent only with a mordant.
Examples are:
Madder: Rubiaa tinctorum, the dried and ground roots of
the madder plant.
Saffron:
Crocus sativus,
produced from crocus blossoms
Kermes: Kermosossous vermilia,
scale insect found on the ilex
oak in southern Europe
Cochineal: Coccus cacti, a scale insect found on cacti.
Thought to have come to Europe from the New World.
Recent discoveries reveal cochineal was known and used by the
Assyrians before the seventh century BC.
Lac: Coccus lacca,
a lac insect found in Ida, Burma, and southern Asia that also yields a resin
known as shellac
Henna: Lawsonia inermis, ground up root cultivated in
Middle East and southern Asia.
More often used to dye skin than fabric.
Woad: Isatis
tinctoria, plant cultivated
longest in history for its pigment qualities.
It yields a dee blue used by Kelts for body paint and fabric dyeing
Weld: Reseda luteola, also called dyer’s mignonette or
ochra. Also softens wool.
Dyer’s Broom: Genista tinctoria
Sumac:
Rhuss coriaria
Vat Dyes:
wash- and light-fast dyes that are permanent without a mordant.
Examples are:
Indigo:Indigofera tinctoria, a legume
Murex Purple: crushed shells of mollusks from the genera
Murex and Purpura
Cutch: Accacia catechu
or Acacia tree and Areca catechu
or betel nut
Yellow and Orange-Pigment Dye Sources:
weld, saffron, marigold, kamala,
Osage orange, goldenrod, coreopsis, parmelia lichen, dyer’s broom, sumac
Orange and Red-Pigment Dye Sources:
madder, red sandalwood, brazilwood, cochineal, cutch, orchil lichen (pinks)
and murex purple
Brown and Grey Pigment Dye Sources:
black walnut, sumac, alkanet,
logwood
Blue Pigment Dye Sources:
indigo, woad
Black Pigment Dye Sources:
insect galls (when crushed and mixed with alum, makes ink and a black dye
for wool)
The Social History of American Knitting,
Anne L. MacDonald
Vogue Dictionary of Knitting Stitches,
Anne Matthews
Knitting Counterpanes,
Mary Walker Phillips
Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting,
Alice Starmore
Aran Knitting,
Alice Starmore
Color and Fiber,
Patricia Lambert
The Whole Craft of Spinning,
Carol Kroll
Spinning and Weaving with Wool,
Paula Simmons
Learning to Weave,
Deborah Chandler
Textiles: 5000 Years,
Jennifer Harris
America’s Printed and Painted Fabrics,
Florence H. Petit
The Technique of Weaving,
John Tovey
Cotton: The Plant That Would Be King,
Bertha S. Dodge
Natural Fibers,
Phyllis, L. Friesen
Warm as Wool, Cool as Cotton,
Carter Houck
Silkworms,
Sylvia A. Johnson
The Story of Wool,
William F. Leggett
A Waever’s Garden,
Rita Buchanan
Nature’s Colors,
Ida Grae
“An Ode to Woad”
Bobbie Irwin, Spin-Off, Summer 1997
America’s Indigo Blues, Resist-Printed and Dyed Textiles of the Eighteenth
Century,
Florence H. Petit
A History of Dyed Textiles,
Stuart Robinson
Indigo, Madder, and Marigold,
Trudy Van Stralen
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years,
Elizabeth Wayland Barber
“Honoring Native American Crafts Today”
Piecework, July/August 1998
“Narcissa Thorne’s Miniature Career”
Deborah Pulliam, Piecework May/June 1998
Labors of Love: America’s Textiles and Needlework
Judith Reiter Weissman
Knitting Supplies
Bamboo
are my
favorite needles for Sport weight and thicker yarns. I also
recommend bamboo or wood needles for beginners as metal can be too slippery.
Metal needles are fine once you are comfortable with knitting.
Straight
needles
are made of many materials and come in different lengths. You
will need to find the lengths and materials that work best for you.
Double-pointed needles are most often used to knit in the round.
Round needles are also for knitting in the round but are just as
effective for flat knitting large pieces.
No doubt
about it, I'm a natural fiber snob. However, I'm also
practical. Acrylic yarns have come along way and are
well-suited to baby clothes and blankets and other garments and blankets
made to be used hard and washed often. Acrylic/natural fiber blends
can be a happy compromise. Still, don't underestimate the versatility
of good old wool. Many yarn companies now make wool
Superwash yarns, that is, wool that can be machine washed, and in come
cases, machine dried without shrinking. Ah, the wonders of
technology!
Natural
fibers come in two types: animal or protein fibers and plant or
cellulose fibers.
Some
common animal fibers are:
Some
common plant fibers are: