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Glossary Of Fabric Terms [63]

B Backstrap loom Simple loom which has its roots in ancient civilizations consists of two sticks or bars between which the warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object, and the other to the weaver usually by means of a strap around the back. The weaver leans back and uses his or her body weight to tension the loom. To open the shed controlled by the string heddles, the weaver relaxes tension on the warps and raises the heddles. The other shed is usually opened by simply drawing the shed roll toward the weaver. Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on this loom.
Baize A coarse woolen (or in cheaper variants cotton) cloth. Baize is most often used on snooker and billiards tables to cover the slate and cushions, and is often used on other kinds of gaming tables such as those for blackjack, baccarat, craps and other casino games. It is also found as a writing surface, particularly on 19th century pedestal desks.
Balanced cloth Fabric made up of equal numbers and sizes of warp and filling yarns.
Ballistic nylon a thick, tough, nylon fabric. Modern applications of ballistic nylon include luggage, cave packs, tool belts, police duty belts, watch straps, motorcycle jackets, knife sheaths, and skin-on-frame kayaks.
Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM) American company involved in the design, development, and manufacture of highly specialized engineered woven webbing, tapes, and specialty fabrics. Their products are designed for aerospace, defense, medical, safety, automotive, commercial, and industrial applications.
Bamboo textile Cloth, yarn, and clothing made out of bamboo fibres. While historically used only for structural elements, such as bustles and the ribs of corsets, in recent years a range of technologies have been developed allowing bamboo fibre to be used in a wide range of textile and fashion applications. Modern clothing labeled bamboo is usually rayon.
Ban-Lon A trademarked, multistrand, continuous-filament synthetic yarn used in the retail clothing industry. It is artificially crimped in order to achieve greater bulk than ordinary yarns. It is frequently associated with 1950s and 1960s American clothing and culture, and at the time was most commonly used to make sweaters.
Barathea A soft fabric, with a hopsack twill weave giving a surface that is lightly pebbled or ribbed. The yarns use cover various combinations of wool, silk and cotton. Worsted barathea (made with a smooth wool yarn) is often used for evening coats, such as dress coats, dinner jackets, and military uniforms, in black and midnight blue.
Barkcloth Barkcloth is a soft, thick, slightly textured fabric, so named because it has a rough surface like that of tree bark. This barkcloth is usually made of densely woven cotton fibers. Historically, the fabric has been used in home furnishings, such as curtains, drapery, upholstery, and slipcovers.
Basket weave The process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into two- or threedimensional artefacts, such as mats or containers. Craftspeople and artists specialised in making baskets are usually referred to as basket makers and basket weavers. Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials—anything that will bend and form a shape. Examples include pine straw, stems, animal hair, hide, grasses, thread, and fine wooden splints.
Basket weaving Basket weaving (also basketry or basket making) is the process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into two- or three dimensional artefacts, such as mats or containers.
Batch dyeing The most popular and common method used for dyeing of textile materials. Batch dyeing is also sometimes referred to as Exhaust dyeing. In this process, the dye gets slowly transferred from a comparatively large volume dyebath to the substrate or material that is to be dyed. The dye is meant to 'exhaust' from dyebath to the substrate. In batch processes, textile substrates can be easily dyed at any stage of their assembly into the desired textile product. This includes fiber, yarn, fabric or garment.
Batik An art technique that involves soaking wax-covered fabric in dye. The wax resists the dye, and is then removed with boiling water. As a result, the sections of the fabric covered with wax are uncolored. If multiple colors are required, the wax-covered sections can be dyed once the wax is removed.
Batik dyeing Technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to whole cloth, or cloth made using this technique. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a canting, or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a cap. The applied wax resists dyes and therefore allows the artisan to colour selectively by soaking the cloth in one colour, removing the wax with boiling water, and repeating if multiple colours are desired. A tradition of making batik is found in various countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Nigeria; the batik of Indonesia, however, is the best-known.
Batiste Batiste is a fine cloth made from cotton, wool, polyester, or a blend, and the softest of the lightweight opaque fabrics. Batiste was often used as a lining fabric for high-quality garments and for handkerchiefs and lingerie.
Battenberg lace A type of tape lace. The name for this American lace was chosen in honour of a wedding of the Battenberg family, which occurred about the time a patent for making the lace was applied for at Washington.
Beam Also called cloth roll. It is a roller, located at the front of a loom, on which woven material is wound after it leaves the breast beam.
Beaming The process of rolling the warp threads onto the back, yarn storage beam of the loom – the warp beam.
Beating–Up In weaving, the movement of the weft threads over the warp toward the edge of the fabric. Beating-up is one of the basic operations in the production of fabric on a loom. The most widely used working unit for this process is the reed, which moves the weft along the entire width of the warp. On some looms, beating-up is accomplished with devices that press and compact the weft (circular looms) or with disks (on looms with multiple sheds).
Bedford cord Named after the town of Bedford in England, it is a durable fabric that resembles corduroy. The weave has faint lengthwise ridges, but without the filling yarns that make the distinct wales characteristic of corduroy. It can have the appearance of narrow-width stripes with thin lines between. Because of its stiff construction, it is often used in upholstery or in outerwear that does not require draping.
Beetling The pounding of linen or cotton fabric to give a flat, lustrous effect. It is the part of the finishing of the linen cloth. The hammering tightens the weave and give the cloth a smooth feel.
Benarasi sari A saree made in Varanasi, a city which is also called Benares or Banaras. The sarees are among the finest sarees in India and are known for their gold and silver brocade or zari, fine silk and opulent embroidery. The sarees are made of finely woven silk and are decorated with intricate design, and, because of these engravings, are relatively heavy.
Bengaline A type of woven silk and cotton blend that was highly popular in the 1880s - 1890s. Originally made in Bengal, India, and is known for its durability, vibrancy, and similarity to genuine silk while using less material. It is characterized by its fine warp yarns that are tied in a crosswise fashion, and is mainly used in coats, dresses, suits, ribbons, draperies and swimsuits.
Bengaline silk A woven material which became fashionable for women and children to wear in the 1880s and 1890s. It offered the impression of genuine silk but was made with lesser amounts of silk than cotton.
Bespoke tailoring Clothing made to an individual buyer's specifications by a tailor.
Beta cloth A type of fireproof silica fiber cloth used in the manufacture of Apollo space suits. Beta cloth consists of fine woven silica fiber, similar to fiberglass. The resulting fabric will not burn, and will melt only at temperatures exceeding 650 °C. To reduce its tendency to crease or tear when manipulated, and to increase durability, the fibers are coated with Teflon.
Bi-directional fabric Fabric comprised of a first set of strong, substantially parallel, unidirectional yarns lying in a first plane; a second set of strong, substantially parallel, unidirectional yarns lying in a second plane above the first plane and arranged transversely to the first set of yarns; and one or more sets of yarns having lower strength and higher elongation interleaved with the strong yarns. The bi-directional articles of the invention provide superior ballistic effectiveness compared to ordinary woven and knitted fabrics but retain the ease of manufacture on conventional looms and knitting machines.
Bias The bias grain of a piece of woven fabric, usually referred to simply as "the bias", is at 45 degrees to its warp and weft threads. Every piece of woven fabric has two biases, perpendicular to each other. A garment made of woven fabric is said to be "cut on the bias" when the fabric's warp and weft threads are at 45 degrees to its major seam lines.
Bicomponent yarns Yarn which has two different types of continuous filament components. The two components may, for example, be different polymers which shrink differently.
Binding Finishing a seam or hem of a garment, usually by rolling or pressing then stitching on an edging or trim (sewing).
Biosteel A trademark name for a high-strength fiber-based material made of the recombinant spider silk-like protein extracted from the milk of transgenic goats, made by Nexia Biotechnologies, and later by the Randy Lewis lab of the University of Wyoming and Utah State University. It is reportedly 7-10 times as strong as steel if compared for the same weight, and can stretch up to 20 times its unaltered size without losing its strength properties. It also has very high resistance to extreme temperatures, not losing any of its properties within −20 to 330 degrees Celsius.
Biostoning A process of finishing fibers or fabrics using enzymes, it gives the finished textile product a stone washed appearance.
Biotextiles Structures composed of textile fibers designed for use in specific biological environments where their performance depends on biocompatibility and biostability with cells and biological fluids. Biotextiles include implantible devices such as surgical sutures, hernia repair fabrics, arterial grafts, artificial skin and parts of artificial hearts.
Bleaching Removing colour from fabric or making it whiter by physical or chemical removal of colour.
Blended fibers Fibers created by combining two or more different fibers.
Blending The process of creating a new fabric is with unique properties by mixing two or more different fabrics together.
Bobbin lace A lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of thread, which are wound on bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pins usually determined by a pattern or pricking pinned on the pillow. It is also known as pillow lace and bone lace.
Bobbinet A plain-net lacemaking machine invented and patented by John Heathcoat in 1808 .
Boil-off The process of removing sizing, wax, impurities, etc., from fabric by scouring.
Boiled wool Boiled wool is a special type of fabric primarily used in berets, scarves, vests, cardigans, coats and jackets. It is created by a mechanical process using water and agitation, shrinking knitted or woven wool, compressing and interlocking the fibers into a tighter felt-like mass. Produced industrially around the world and characteristically found in the traditional textiles of South America and of Tyrolean Austria.
Bombazine A fabric originally made of silk or silk and wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone. Quality bombazine is made with a silk warp and a worsted weft. It is twilled or corded and used for dress-material. Black bombazine was once used largely for mourning wear, but the material had gone out of fashion by the beginning of the 20th century.
Bonded fabrics A nonwoven fabric in which the fibers are held together by a bonding material. This may be an adhesive or a bonding fiber with a low melting point, or the material may be held together by stitching.
Boucle Bouclé is both a yarn and a fabric made from it.
Braid A complex structure or pattern formed by interlacing three or more strands of flexible material such as textile yarns, wire, or hair. In clothing, they are usually woven into a decorative band for edging or trimming garments.
Break factor Any of the factors which affect material's structural integrity, causing it to break.
Breaking strength The stress at which a material fails via fracture.
Breaking tenacity Basically a textile strength, that is a customary measure of strength of a fiber or yarn.
Brilliantine A lightweight, mixed-fibre fabric popular from the mid-19th century into the early 20th century. Brilliantine can be plain or twill woven with a wool or mohair weft on a silk or cotton warp. Brilliantine has a lustrous finish and is known for its dust-shedding properties; it was available in solid colors or printed, and was used for dresses, dusters, and linings.
British Standards Institution (BSI) The national standards body of the United Kingdom which produces technical standards on a wide range of products and services, and also supplies certification and standards-related services to businesses.
Broad goods Cloth woven in standard or wider widths especially in distinction from ribbons, bands, or trimmings.
Broadcloth A dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. Today, most broadcloth is cotton or a cotton blend. The defining characteristic of Broadcloth is not its finished width, but the fact that it was woven much wider and then heavily milled (traditionally the cloth was worked by heavy wooden trip hammers in hot soapy water in order to shrink it) in order to reduce it to the required width.
Brocade Brocade is a class of richly decorative fabrics, often made in colored silks and with or without gold and silver threads. The name comes from from Spanish and Portuguese "brocado" and Italian "broccato", meaning "embossed cloth".
Brocatelle A brocade in which the design is woven in high relief.
Broderie Anglaise A whitework needlework technique incorporating features of embroidery, cutwork and needle lace that became associated with England, due to its popularity there in the 19th century.
Broken end Broken ends appear as equidistant prominent horizontal lines along the width of the fabric tube when a yarn breaks or is exhausted.
Broken pick Filling yarn that is broken in the weaving of a fabric appears as a defect. Improper functioning of weft stop motion results in broken picks undetected and going in to the fabric.
Brushing (or Raising) A finishing process for knit or woven fabrics in which brushes or other abrading devices are used on a loosely constructed fabric to permit the fibers in the yarns to be raised to create a nap on fabrics or create a novelty surface texture.
Buckram Buckram is a stiff cloth, made of cotton, which is used to cover and protect books.
Bunting A term for any festive decorations made of fabric, or of plastic, paper or even cardboard in imitation of fabric. Typical forms of bunting are strings of colorful triangular flags and lengths of fabric in the colors of national flags gathered and draped into swags or pleated into fan shapes.
Burano lace Lace type that originates from the island of Burano near Venice. The heyday of Burano needle lace ranged from about 1620 to 1710, the height of demand among European nobility and royalty.
Burlap Hessian or Burlap is a woven fabric usually made from skin of the jute plant or sisal fibres, which may be combined with other vegetable fibres to make rope, nets, and similar products.
Burn-Out Print (or Devore) A fabric technique particularly used on velvets, where a mixed-fibre material undergoes a chemical process to dissolve the cellulose fibers to create a semi-transparent pattern against more solidly woven fabric. The same technique can also be applied to textiles other than velvet, such as lace or the fabrics in burnout t-shirts.
Burn-out Velvet Also called "devoré", it is a velvet fabric with a pattern formed by burning the pile away with acid. A mixed-fibre material undergoes a chemical process to dissolve the cellulose fibers to create a semi-transparent pattern against more solidly woven fabric. The same technique can also be applied to textiles other than velvet, such as lace or the fabrics in burnout t-shirts.