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Textile

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Art

   Sunday textile market on the sidewalks of Karachi, Pakistan.
   Sunday textile market on the sidewalks of Karachi, Pakistan.

   A textile is a flexible material comprised of a network of natural or
   artificial fibers often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced
   by spinning raw wool fibers, linen, cotton, or other material on a
   spinning wheel to produce long strands known as yarn. Textiles are
   formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or pressing fibers
   together.

Terminology

   The words fabric and cloth are commonly used in textile assembly trades
   (such as tailoring and dressmaking) as synonyms for textile. However,
   there are subtle differences in these terms. Textile refers to any
   material made of interlacing fibres. Fabric refers to any material made
   through weaving, knitting, crocheting, or bonding. Cloth refers to a
   finished piece of fabric that can be used for a purpose such as
   covering a bed.

History

   The production of textiles is an important craft, whose speed and scale
   of production has been altered almost beyond recognition by
   industrialization and the introduction of modern manufacturing
   techniques. However, for the main types of textiles, plain weave, twill
   or satin weave there is little difference between the ancient and
   modern methods.

Uses

   Textiles have an assortment of uses, the most common of which are for
   clothing and containers such as bags and baskets. In the household,
   they are used in carpeting, upholstered furnishings, window shades,
   towels, covering for tables, beds, and other flat surfaces, and in art.
   In the workplace, they are used in industrial and scientific processes
   such as filtering. Miscellaneous uses include flags, tents, nets,
   cleaning devices, such as handkerchiefs; transportation devices such as
   balloons, kites, sails, and parachutes; strengthening in composite
   materials such as fibre glass and industrial geotextiles, and smaller
   cloths are used in washing by "soaping up" the cloth and washing with
   it rather than using just soap.

   Textiles used for industrial purposes, and chosen for characteristics
   other than their appearance, are commonly referred to as technical
   textiles. Technical textiles include textile structures for automotive
   applications, medical textiles (e.g. implants), geotextiles
   (reinforcement of enbankments), agrotextiles (textiles for crop
   protection), protective clothing (e.g. against heat and radiation for
   fire fighter clothing, against molten metals for welders, stab
   protection, and bullet proof vests. In all these applications stringent
   performance requirement must be met.

Production methods

   Weaving is a textile production method which involves interlacing a set
   of vertical threads (called the warp) with a set of horizontal threads
   (called the weft). This is done on a machine known as a loom, of which
   there are a number of types. Some weaving is still done by hand, but
   the vast majority is mechanised.

   Knitting and crocheting involve interlacing loops of yarn, which are
   formed either on a knitting needle or on a crochet hook, together in a
   line. The two processes are different in that knitting has several
   active loops at one time, on the knitting needle waiting to interlock
   with another loop, while crocheting never has more than one active loop
   on the needle.

   Braiding or plaiting involves twisting threads together into cloth.
   Knotting involves tying threads together and is used in making macrame.

   Lace is made by interlocking threads together independently, using a
   backing and any of the methods described above, to create a fine fabric
   with open holes in the work. Lace can be made by either hand or
   machine.

   Carpets, rugs, velvet, velour, and velveteen, are made by interlacing a
   secondary yarn through woven cloth, creating a tufted layer known as a
   nap or pile.

   Felting involves pressing a mat of fibers together, and working them
   together until they become tangled. A liquid, such as soapy water, is
   usually added to lubricate the fibers, and to open up the microscopic
   scales on strands of wool.

Treatments

   Textiles are often dyed, with fabrics available in almost every colour.
   Coloured designs in textiles can be created by weaving together fibres
   of different colours ( plaid or ikat), adding coloured stitches to
   finished fabric ( embroidery), creating patterns by resist dyeing
   methods, tying off areas of cloth and dyeing the rest ( tie-dye), or
   drawing wax designs on cloth and dyeing in between them ( batik), or
   using various printing processes on finished fabric. Woodblock printing
   , still used in India and elsewhere today, is the oldest of these
   dating back to at least 220AD in China.

   Textiles are also sometimes bleached. In this process, the original
   colour of the textile is removed by chemicals or exposure to sunlight,
   turning the textile pale or white.

   Textiles are sometimes finished by starching, which makes the fabric
   stiff and less prone to wrinkles, or by waterproofing, which makes the
   fabric slick and impervious to water or other liquids. Since the 1990s,
   finishing agents have been used to strengthen fabrics and make them
   wrinkle free.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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