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Textile Glossary
Cutting through the jargon
This glossary is a resource aimed at helping share and simplify both generic and industry specific information, expertise and knowledge. This service is provided as a committment to visitors to our site and the industry as whole. Although we aim to ensure that all the content is correct, please bear in mind that some areas of the industry move fast and terminology and its application can change.
Taffeta
A plain weave, tightly woven smooth crisp fabric with a characteristic rustle. Made from silk or man-made filament yarns.
Tag wool
The first clip from a sheep not shorn as a lamb.
Tailors
Person or company that makes repairs or alters garments such as suits, coats, dresses or uniforms.
Tape (textile)
(1) a woven narrow fabric, generally plain-weave, used in non-loadbearing applications and the reinforcing of fabrics to resist wear and deformation. (2) a long narrow flat structure with textile-like properties made from thermoplastic polymer, paper, or other appropriate material.
Tape yarn
A yarn which comprises a tape with a large width-to-thickness ratio, and which has an apparent width not exceeding an agreed limit (e.g., 5mm or 8mm). Note: such yarns are usually of paper or are formed by slitting a wide film of (usually) polyethylene or polypropylene polymer into individual tapes, with hot-stretching either before or after slitting to induce high longitudinal strength. The draw ratio in hot-stretching is kept low enough to avoid excessive longitudinal fibrillation. The tape yarn so produced is suitable for weaving.
Taper
To decrease width gradually and bring it to an end point.
Tapestry
A closely woven figured fabric of compound structure in which a pattern is developed by the use of coloured yarns in the warp or in the weft or both. A fine binder warp and weft may be incorporated. It normally used for upholstery. Note: originally the term was applied to furnishing fabrics in which the design was produced by means of coloured threads inserted by hand as required. Modern tapestry fabrics are woven on jacquard looms, coloured yarns being used to produce the desired pattern. There are various fabric structures in which two or more warps and wefts of different materials may be used. The face of the fabric is usually of uniform texture, the design being developed in various colours, but in some tapestry fabrics figures of the brocade type formed by floating some of the threads are also to be found.
Tartan
Refers to the kinds of plaid patterns traditionally worn by scottish highlanders . Each design was associated with a specific family or "clan". The term is generally used to today in reference to any plaid design similar to these Scottish designs.
Tattersall
A simple overcheck design, usually a thin check of one or 2 colors on a contrasting colour ground.
Teazle; teazel; teasel
The dried seed-head of the plant dipsacus fullonum (fullers thistle) used to raise a pile or nap on certain fabrics. The machine used for this purpose is known as a teazle gig.
Teentah topi
A topi (q.v.) Consisting of three different pieces, stitched together.
Teflon
A water repellent, stain resistant finish applied to fabric . Trademark of du pont co.
Teflon Treated
Dupont brand name for Polytetrafluroethylene (PTE) compound consisting of Carbon and Flourine neither water or oil are wet by Polytetrafluroethylene.This gives good water and stain resistance to cloths which have been treated with Teflon.
Temporary set
The process of conferring temporary stability of form upon fibres, yarns, or fabrics, usually by means of successive heating and cooling in moist or dry conditions.
Tensile test
A test in which the resistance of a material to stretching in one direction is measured.
Terry
A fabric with uncut loops on one or both sides . May be woven or knit. Used for toweling, robes. Knit versions such as french terry have loops on one side and are sometimes brushed to produce a fleece.
Tex
The basic unit of the Tex system.
Tex system
A system of expressing linear density (mass per unit length) of fibres, filaments, slivers, and yarns, or other linear textile material. The basic unit is the tex, which is the mass in grams of one kilometre of the product. Multiples and sub-multiples recommended for use in preference to other possible combinations are: kilogram per kilometre, designated kilotex (ktex); decigram per kilometre, designated decitex (dtex);and milligram per kilometre, designated millitex (mtex).
Textile
Originally a woven fabric but the term is now applied to fibres, filaments, or yarns, natural man-made, and products obtained from them. Note: for example, threads, cords, ropes, braids, lace, embroidery, nets, and fabrics made by weaving, knitting, felting, bonding, and tufting are textiles. Used as an adjective, descriptive of fibrous or filamentous manufactures and of the raw materials, processes, machines, buildings, and personnel used in the organizations connected with, and the technology of, their manufacture.
Textile film
A man-made textile material in film form within which molecular orientation is predominantly in the longitudinal direction. Note: polymer films for non-textile use are commonly unoriented or bi-axially oriented, but uni-axial orientation is present in some cases.
Textured yarn
A continuous-filament yam that has been processed to introduce durable crimps, coils, loops or other fine distortions along the lengths of the filaments. Note 1: the main texturing procedures which are usually applied to continuous-filament yarns made from or containing thermoplastic fibres, are: (a) the yarn is highly twisted, heat-set and untwisted either as a process of three separate stages (now obsolescent) or as a continuous process (false-twist texturing). In an infrequently used alternative method, two yarns are continuously folded together, heat-set, then separated by unfolding; (b) the yam is injected into a heated stuffer box either by feed rollers or through a plasticizing jet of hot fluid (invariably air or steam). The jet process is sometimes known as jet texturing, hot-air jet texturing, or steam-jet texturing; (c) the yam is plasticized by passage through a jet of hot fluid and is impacted on to a cooling surface (impact texturing); (d) the heated yam is passed over a knife-edge (edge crimping), (now obsolete); (e) the heated yarn is passed between a pair of gear wheels or through some similar device (gear crimping); (f) the yam is knitted into a fabric that is heat-set and then unravelled (knit-deknit texturing); (g) the yam is over-fed through a turbulent air stream (air-texturing, air-jet texturing), so that entangled loops are formed in the filaments; (h) the yarn is composed of bicomponent fibres and is subjected to a hot and/or wet process whereby differential shrinkage occurs. Note 2: procedures (a) and (d) in note i above gives yams of a generally high-stretch character. This is frequently reduced by re-heating the yam in a state where it is only partly relaxed from the fully extended condition, thus producing a stabilized yarn with the bulkiness little reduced but with a much reduced retractive power. Note 3: the procedure (g) may also be applied to fibres which are not thermoplastic.
Theatrical Fabrics
Cloth used for actors costumes, theatrical scenery, curtains and furnishings.
Thermal fabric
A knit or woven fabric constructed so as to trap warm air between the yarns. Often in a waffle or honeycomb texture. Used for blankets and underwear.
Thermally bonded nonwoven fabric
Textile fabric composed of a web or batt of fibres containing heat-sensitive material, bonded by the application of heat, with or without pressure. The heat-sensitive materials may be in the form of fibres, bicomponent fibres or powders.
Thermoplastic
Deformable by applied heat and pressure without any accompanying chemical change. The deformation is reversible.
Thick & thin
A fabric with a mottled appearance, made from a filament yarn with varying thickness.
Thickener
A substance used to increase the viscosity of a print paste or other fluid, in order to control its flow properties. Natural polymers (starch, alginates, etc.,), chemical modifications thereof, synthetic polymers, emulsions, foams and clays can be used.
Thread
(1) the result of twisting together in one or more operations two or more single, folded, or cabled yarns (2) a product as defined in (1) intended particularly for sewing purposes. (known also as sewing thread.) (3) a component of silk yarn. It is the product of winding together without twist a number of baves. A three-thread silk yarn is the result of folding three such products together (4) a textile yam in general.
Thread count
Is the number of warp and weft yarns in one square-inch of a fabric (warp yarn x weft yarn per sq. Inch)
Throw
A term, of germanic and anglo-saxon origin, used especially in the silk and man-made fibre industries to describe the twisting or folding of continuous-filament yams. Note. The term throwster was traditionally used to describe an individual or company specifically involved with these twisting processes, but, in more recent times, the title has also been inherited by those who manufacture textured yarns by the false-twist method.
Ticking
A general term for a strong, tightly woven fabric most often used for mattress and box spring covers but also for workwear and other apparel. Often found in a pattern of narrow stripes on either side of a wider stripe. They are commonly dark warp stripes on a white ground.
Tie dyed
A hand method of dyeing that involves gathering small portions of the fabric and tying them tightly before dyeing. The tied areas resist penetration of the dye, resulting in irregular patterns. Also refers to similar designs created by machine methods.
Tinsel yarn
A textile yarn or thread, combined, coated, or covered with a shiny substance, often metallic (e.g., aluminium, occasionally gold or silver), to produce a glittering or sparkling effect.
Tippy wool
Wool in which the tip portions of the fibres have been so damaged by weathering during growth as to have markedly different dyeing properties.
Tissue faille
A lightweight, plain weave, filament yarn fabric characterized by a narrow crosswise rib. Used for blouses and dresses.
Tone on tone
1. A fabric with a pattern consisting of 2 or more shades of the same color. 2. Piece dyed dobbies in which the dobby effect takes on a different tone by virtue of the weave, light reflection or types of yarn used.
Top
(1) sliver that forms the starting material for the worsted and certain other drawing systems, usually obtained by the process of combing, and characterized by the following properties: (a) the absence of fibres so short as to be uncontrolled in the preferred system of drawing; (b) a substantially parallel formation of the fibres; (c) a substantially homogeneous distribution throughout the sliver of fibres from each length-group present. Note 1: tops are usually produced by carding and combing, or by preparing and combing on worsted machinery, but recent years have seen the introduction of top-making by the cutting or controlled breaking of continuous-filament tows of man-made fibres, and the assembly of the resultant staple fibres into sliver in a single machine. Note 2: the advent of man-made fibres has meant the introduction of staple-fibre top into the flax, jute, spun silk, and other drawing systems. (2) the form or package in which sliver is delivered, e.g., ball top or bump top.
Top dyed
A fibre dyeing method in which dye in applied to combed fibers in an untwisted or loosely twisted rope form (called top or sliver ) . Sometimes dye is applied or printed on the fiber at regular intervals to give a melange effect . Top dyeing results in good colourfastness.
Tow-to-top
A process in which heavy continuous-filament yam, having no twist and a substantially parallel alignment of the filaments, is cut or broken into staple and drafted into a sliver as a continuous process. It is characteristic of the process that the tow does not lose its form, although the filaments are broken down into short lengths, but is only attenuated in the drafting process.
Transfer printing
Any process by which a design is transferred from paper to another substrate. Several techniques have been used, viz melt-transfer, film-release, and wet-transfer, but vapour transfer (sublimation transfer) is the most important. Selected disperse dyes transfer in vapour form to thermoplastic fibres when the printed paper and fabric are brought into close contact in a transfer press at 170˚-220˚c.
Trash (cotton)
A loose term embracing, in its widest sense, the non-fibrous foreign matter present in bales of raw cotton other than abnormal items, such as stone, timber, pieces of old iron, etc. Note 1: normal whole seeds, either ginned or un-ginned, are frequently excluded from this category but broken portions of them and also whole or broken undeveloped seeds are usually regarded as trash. Note2, the main component of trash is chaff and dirt in the form of soil or sand.
Trend
Fashion is not static, they are constantly moving, their movement has a definite direction. The direction in which fashion moves is called fashion trend.
Trim
To cut off the ragged edges below the seam line to prevent the garment from being bulky and to give the seam a neat finish.
Tubular
A knit fabric made on a circular knitting machine and shipped without being slit to open width form.
Tuck stitch
A knit stitch that results in open spaces at regular intervals on the fabric by having some needles hold more than one loop at a time.
Twaddell
A scale used for the measurement of the specific gravity of liquids by hydrometry. The following formula expresses the relationship between specific gravity (sg), and degrees twaddell (tw), for liquids heavier than water.
Tweed
Originally a coarse, heavy-weight, rough-surfaced wool fabric for outerwear, woven in southern
Twill
A general term for a woven fabric made with a twill weave, a basic weave characterized by diagonal lines on the face of the fabric.
Twill
A weave characterised by diagonal lines . This is produced by a series of floats staggered in the warp or weft direction.
Twill weave woollen fabrics
Woollen cloth woven with a weave characterised by diagonal lines.
Twist
The condition of a yarn or similar structure when the component elements have a helical disposition such as results, for instance, from relative rotation of the yarn ends. For all practical purposes twist is measured in turns, but for purely theoretical work its measurement in radians (the si unit) often leads to much simpler mathematical expressions.
Twist angle
The angle between the path of a yarn element and the yarn axis.
Twist direction
Twist is described as 's' or 'z' according to which of these letters has its centre inclined in the same direction as the surface elements of a given twisted yarn.
Twist factor; twist multiplier
In a yarn, the product of twist level and the square root of the linear density. Note: where units of specific length are in use, the corresponding factor is the quotient of the twist level and the square root of the count.
Twist level
The amount of twist per unit length of a yarn. Note: with the exception of false-twisting , the length is normally assumed to be that in the twisted form but, when necessary, ambiguity can be avoided by stating, for example, turns per twisted metre or turns per untwisted metre.
Twist liveliness
The tendency of a yam to twist or untwist spontaneously. Note 1: examples of effects which may be caused by twist liveliness include snarling of yarns during processing and spirality in knitted fabrics.
Twist multiplier; twist factor
In a yarn, the product of twist level and the square root of the linear density.
Twistless spinning
A system of yarn formation that relies on the use of a permanent or temporary adhesive to bond fibres together. Note: where a temporary adhesive is used it is removed during fabric finishing, and the yarn (and fabric) strength is then obtained through lateral pressure produced by the interlacings in the fabric. A similar fabric construction can be achieved by using wrap spun yarns which have been produced with a soluble binder.
Twistless yarn
A yarn prepared without twist in order to obtain special properties, e.g., increased softness and dyeability.
Twitty
Descriptive of an irregular yarn or stubbing in which local concentrations of twist have accentuated the irregular appearance.
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