Colour in woven design

74. Colours applied to Textiles on Various Systems.—There are numerous methods of introducing colours and fancy shades into woven patterns. According to the kind of fabric being produced, the nature of the materials composing it, and its structural arrangement, the scheme of colouring practised varies. Suitings, trouserings, mantlings, dresses, vestings, shawls, rugs, carpets, and other important typical textures, are all coloured on distinct principles. Worsteds are not treated in a colour sense precisely on the same system as woollens, nor silks as cottons. Simple weaves allow of more varied colouring than diagonals and other intricate crossings; figured designs of a floral or geometrical character, than those resulting from combining several small weaves; single-make than double- and treble-make patterns; ordinary decorative fabrics, than plushes and lenos, and so on. Yet there are some principles of textile colouring common to all species of woven design. Certain methods of grouping yarns in elementary plans of interlacing warp and weft yield, under all conditions, the same style of effects. As a well-known combination of lines makes the key pattern, so in textile designing there are methods of classifying and uniting shades which cannot but produce one form of pattern. While in subsequent chapters it will be needful to specialize and indicate the complex modes of colouring practised by the weaver, here the general principles of the art will be simply expounded.

75. Types of Woven Colourings.—All varieties of textile colourings may be classified under two great heads, which are capable of subdivision, as in the Table appended.

Table VII.

Illustrating the Types of Woven Colourings.

I. COLOUR IN SIMPLE AND FANCY WEAVES.

77. Colour in relation to Backed, Double, and Compound Cloths.—The fabrics named in Section B of Part I. of Table VII. are much more intricate in structure than those alluded to in the previous paragraph, and hence require greater technical skill in colour treatment. As these cloths are multi-ply in the weft, in the warp, or in both warp and weft, they can only be economically and advantageously coloured when their build or structure is thoroughly understood. The yarns employed in the composition of the face pattern have to be kept distinct from those forming the back of the fabric, and vice versâ. Frequently, the colouring of the face forms a different style from that on the back, in which case a combination of at least two principles of colouring takes place.

The range of patterns in these makes is very diversified, but it is confined to a somewhat limited class of goods, as indicated in the Table. Winter fabrics for men’s and women’s wear are the principal goods to which these weaves are applied, so that for climatic reasons light and fancy patterns are only exceptionally in demand, a fact which somewhat simplifies the application of colour to these styles. Some heavy tartan travelling rugs and wraps are also constructed in this type of weave. In the ordinary backed textures composed of one make on the face, the patterns are mostly of a simple stripe or check arrangement, but in rugs and heavy cloths elaborate and complex blends of shades obtain.

78. Colour applied to Single-make Figured Fabrics.—These form the A Group of textures given in Part II. of the Table. In addition to the effect in this instance due to association of colours, there is design or pattern produced by a combination of weaves differing in structure or build, and moreover in appearance in the woven fabric. The weaves may be arranged to form stripes, checks, and figures. The classes of goods to which these designs are applied are numerous, including trouserings and coatings in woollen and worsted yarns, fancy dress goods, mohair, silk, and other classes of mantlings, ulsterings, silk handkerchiefs, cotton textures, and decorative fabrics. The principles involved in this type of textile designing comprise the application of colour in the development of simple weave effects, and its introduction into designs composed of several weave elements to give precision and smartness of figuring. Before colour can be suitably applied here, its effect on the elementary crossings must be clearly apprehended. The designs containing various makes, such arrangements of fancy shades have to be used as will emphasize exactly the several parts of the whole style, and not result in the suppression of some sections and in too bold a development of others. The larger the number of weaves entering into any single design, the greater the intricacy of colour application. When colour, in relation to the A Group of fabrics in the first section of the Table, is understood theoretically and practically, its functions and scope in this branch of designing may be readily mastered.

79. Fancy Shades applied to Backed and Double Weave Combination Designs.—Winter goods of a figured order for apparel are included in Group B of the Figured Patterns. This class of textiles also comprises some styles of shawls, mantlings, and rugs. Many types of striped trouserings, in which two double makes occur, come within the scope of this useful group of textiles. Generally, if the method of colouring is simple, the combination of weaves is diversified; but should the latter only comprise a few elements of weaving, more complex schemes of colouring are requisitioned. This order of patterns, moreover, includes certain species of textile effect not producible by having recourse to any other principle of weaving, but those appertaining to double-cloth combinations. Regarding the style of figuring feasible, it may be either elementary or elaborate in arrangement. Every description of ornamentation can be developed, from the simplest rectangular pattern to the most fantastic and complex blend of floral and other forms. It is this feature of this principle of design and colouring which makes it useful in the production of various kinds of reversible fabrics—textures figured and wearable on both sides, such as shawls, Austrian blankets or rugs, and carpets. Yet while the application of colour to these designs may yield these elaborate loom productions, the same scheme of colouring applied to the identical type of weave designs, may give such patterns as obtain in fancy trouserings, suitings, mantlings, and ulsterings of infinite variety of style. The structure and weave composition of these fabrics, and modes of gaining effects in them by colour, will be explained in detail later.

80. Colour in Designs in which the Figures are produced by the Weft Yarns.—In Group C the Textiles mentioned are vestings, dresses, matelasses, and curl fabrics. This is an interesting type of weave design in which colour is of great utility in developing the integral parts of the figures composing the pattern. Warp yarns in these goods are only of secondary importance, the figured elements of the styles being solely the product of the weft yarns. These are, therefore, of various shades, while the warp is generally, although not necessarily, of one colour. Strictly speaking, these fabrics may be several fold in the weft, but they are invariably single in the warp. The extreme fancy character of the textures to which this principle of designing and colouring is applicable, is indicative of its scope. It is specially useful in fancy vesting styles, and is absolutely essential to the construction of one important class of matelasses, and also invaluable in the weaving of some kinds of curl cloths made for mantlings.

81. Figured Effects obtained by Warp Colouring.—This is the reverse of the preceding principle of intertexture. All the fabrics enumerated in Class D are constructed on this system. They have one weft and several warps, the number of the latter varying according to the multiplicity of colours forming the pattern. Warp colouring is applicable to an extensive variety of fabrics. Commencing with the simplest type first, this system of colouring plays an important part in spotted designs, or patterns in which the distinguishing feature is a series of spots or minute specks of bright colours. These effects appear in suitings, mantlings, dresses, and cotton goods, including fabrics for small-ware purposes. Very elaborate dress styles are also figured by several sets of warp colourings. Here the weft is a sort of binding agent, uniting into one compact and firm fabric the various elements of warp colouring. Velvets and figured plushes, comprising astrachans and pile goods made in imitation of animal skins, in addition to Brussels, Axminster, and velvet-pile carpets, owe their design composition to the employment of two or more layers of warp threads.

82. Colour in Textiles Figured by both Warp and Weft Yarns.—This is the most comprehensive of all classes of textiles to which colour is related. The most elaborate patterns made in the loom, and the most costly, are the product of combining both warp and weft colouring. It is quite evident, on consulting Table VII. of the different types of textile colouring, that, in theory, the E Group of fabrics results from combining the systems of weaving included in Groups C and D, but, in practice, as subsequent analysis will demonstrate, other details of designing and colouring are involved in the execution of this class of fabrics than those here comprised. As this species of colouring finds expression in all the types of figured woven effects specialized in the above mentioned styles of fabrics, it is useless to attempt further classification. These styles are intricate in build and unique in principles of intertexture. Usually, they are neither purely double, nor yet purely single in construction, but embrace schemes of designing and colouring, such as may only be mastered by those who previously study the former fabrics to which colour is applied, and which are named in Table VII.

83. Pattern Design.—This style of pattern results solely from the methods of grouping fancy warp or weft yarns, or both these elements of textile fabrics. It may be appropriately designated “Colour” to distinguish it from “Weave” design; for, if the colours are removed from such patterns, all effect is destroyed. Colour here yields both the form of the design and the beauty of the style. No type of textile designing is more extensively utilized than this, for the styles resultant are characterized by neatness and by great utility. Pattern design relates not only to the artistic grouping or blending of shades, but to their arrangement. The latter is a factor which has to be suited to the build of the weave. The same plans of colours are capable of yielding quite distinct effects in two different weaves. Fig. 5, A, B, and C, and Fig. 5, D, E, and F, demonstrate this important principle of textile colouring. The weaves (marked ⊡’s for weft) are plain in Fig. 5, A, B, C, and [2\2] or cassimere twill in Fig. 5, D, E, F. The effects of different marks in the sketches, and also the methods of warping and wefting, or the order of colouring, are stated in the following Table:⁠—

Table VIII.

The arrangement of the yarns in the examples is the same, but the weave structures are dissimilar. The plain make so determines the crossing of the warp and weft yarns, that the white picks always float under the grey threads and over the white threads, while the grey picks always float under the white and over the grey threads, hence the solidity of the respective lines of colour is uninterrupted, and a pattern produced of a simple stripe order. Coming to the twill weave, it distributes the colours differently. Each pick floats over and under two threads at a time, so that the picks at every interlacing cover, or are covered, by both a grey and a white thread. Let it now be shown what is the result of this. Supposing the first thread and pick to be grey (Fig. 5, F) and the second thread and pick white, then, if the effect of the interweaving of the first pick is traced, it will be obvious how it forms part of the minute diagonal pattern sketched in Fig. 5, F. This pick floats over a grey and a white, and then under a grey and a white thread, so that a small transverse line of grey is formed equal in length, not to a float over two, but three threads, for although the extent of the weft float is two, yet the grey thread adjoining it enlarges it in effect to three. Next take the second pick. It floats over the second and third threads, and, being white, makes a transverse line of this shade of similar dimensions to the preceding pick, because the fourth thread in the warp is white, and in the texture is added to the two-weft float. If picks three and four are examined, it will be noticed that they give like results, only the positions of the small lines of colours are moved one thread in each case to the right, causing the diagonal effect in the fabric to move to the right. Analyzing the first and second threads, it will be seen that they make short vertical lines, equal in length to flushing over three picks in succession. Take the first thread, which is grey: it is depressed on the first pick, being covered by the grey pick, then up twice; the second thread is also down on the first pick, then down on the second pick, being covered by the white weft, and afterwards elevated over picks three and four, forming a float of white of the same size as if the thread had flushed over three succeeding picks.

These illustrations show how the structure of the weave modifies the effect of the colours. This relation of weave to colour, as regards systems of arranging fancy shades, is one of the technical elements of textile colouring. Weaving principles cannot be ignored; they must always be considered, as they are capable both of destroying or of beautifying a set of colours.

Pattern design also relates to the invention of novel methods of grouping fancy threads, or to the assortment and distribution of the several colours in both warp and weft. Independent of the somewhat subtle question of harmony of tints which has to be considered here, such schemes of blending warp and weft threads of appropriate colours have to be devised as will give various styles in the same order of colourings and the same weave. By a modification of the plan of combining the yarns great variety of pattern may be obtained. Even when limited to this mode of producing pattern in the loom, novelty and force of style is feasible. The simplest alteration in the grouping of the threads frequently gives quite a new cast to the design. There are three features of Pattern Design that are intimately associated with the character of the pattern originated: I. the selection of appropriate shades; II. their classification and arrangement as to quantity; and III. the invention of such a plan of combining these colours in the fabric as will be in accordance with the construction of the weave or design composing the cloth.

84. Styles due to Colouring only.—The patterns produced wholly by varying the plan of associating colours in textiles may in a general sense be grouped under four heads, viz., Stripes, Checks, Mixtures, and small Figured Effects. These designs obtain in a large variety in all kinds of materials.

85. Stripes.—Treating of each description of style analytically, stripe patterns may be primarily examined. They consist of bands or lines of different shades, varying in width, running lengthways of the fabric, that is, in the direction of the warp. The distinctive characteristic of a stripe is its line-like composition. All patterns of this order are nothing more than a blend of lines of divers shades and of various dimensions, extending from end to end of the piece. For trouserings, suitings, and some styles of dress and mantling cloths, no form of pattern is better adapted. The prominence of the several bands of colour, their solidity and distinctness, or their intermittent character and subdued or toned aspect, are all qualities depending on the structure of the fabric and its weave composition, which will be subsequently noticed. If the pattern in striped styles is principally a warp product, the weft is only a supplementary feature of the design, being employed, firstly, to bind the warp ends together and thus form a wearable fabric; and, secondly, to constitute an appropriate groundwork on which the warp colourings may be correctly developed. Proper emphasis of the colours composing the stripes is acquired by employing a suitable shade of weft, and by adopting that system of crossing or weaving which will, in addition to yielding the requisite strength and firmness of fabric, sufficiently interfere with the continuity of the fancy shades introduced into the warp. Stripes are of various dimensions and arrangements. Some are mere lines, and no wider than the diameter of the threads employed; others are many inches broad. One colour may be so introduced as to form bands of different widths. Thus, if brown and black were the colours at command, they could be so combined as to give styles of several descriptions in which the bands of the respective shades would always be of corresponding widths; or they might be combined on such a principle as to form sets of stripes of variable sizes. To a considerable extent, the character of these patterns is governed by the class of texture in which they appear. Instances of this occur in the various fabrics produced in the loom. Generally, for example, stripes for trouserings are not wide, but of small and medium sizes, and soft and neatly toned in colouring. For ulsterings, dresses, and mantlings, much broader effects, more elaborate in arrangement, and of greater force of colouring, are required. In cotton blouses, small styles are the most valuable, but in cotton fancies for dresses there are no definite limits to the width of the stripes and to the intricacy of the plan of colouring.

86. Checks.—These may be considered as forming the second great class of patterns in which colour is the all-important element. Of course reference is only made at this time to that type of check in which the weave is a simple factor. No allusion is made to, or consideration taken of, weave compounds which of themselves will form a species of check. The checks now being examined are those resulting from adopting the same or a similar order of weft as warp colouring. In other words, if the arrangement of warp yarns were 10 threads of black and 2 threads of white, the weft would be the same, forming a solid square of black, surrounded by a skeleton square of white. The term “check” is suggestive of the appearance of these styles and of the scheme of their construction. The warp colourings, however complicated in arrangement and diverse in composition, to produce a perfect check must be crossed or “checked,” as the operation is technically called, in precisely the same manner and by exactly the same shades in the weft. The plaids on Plates V. and X. are typical examples of the principles of checking. Here it is evident that each set of colours in the warp when woven with corresponding shades of weft forms a square of colour perfectly solid. The blue threads of warp and weft make blue checks; the green, squares of this colour; and the black and yellow also checks of these shades. The size of the check is determined by the mode of grouping the yarns, the coarseness of the texture, and the thickness of the yarns of which it is composed. Many of the principles of woven colouring applicable to stripes also apply to checks, which strictly speaking are patterns striped both in transverse and lineal directions.

87. Mixtures.—The mixtures implied here may be defined as small all-over effects in which the various colours used are so fully co-mingled that the particular part played by any one colour is not observable. They require the most mellow treatment of all coloured styles. Nothing of a loud character succeeds, nor appears attractive in these textures. Mellow, smart, and choice combinations are desired. The pattern should present not so much a patchy, as a rich and tinted appearance—every colour utilized in its formation associating with its neighbours to compose one indefinite blend of minute effects. To produce styles of this order no single colour should be distinct and louder than the rest, nor be allowed to intrude on the eye more than another—complete harmony of colouring and uniformity of tone are absolutely essential. But one shade more pronounced in tint or more powerful in hue—being of a deeper intensity than its associates—is sufficient to destroy the beauty of the whole combination. This being the case, the system of mixing the several shades must be such that all colours will be equally emphasized; for evidently lack of equality in the prominence of the various colour elements amalgamated, destroys the essential character of these useful and valuable styles.

Mixtures obtain principally in woollen yarns, whose fibrous surfaces are well adapted for mixing the hues combined thoroughly, and without producing a fabric in which the colours form patches or spangles of variable sizes and shapes. All mixture effects are minute in character, and are produced for suitings, dress fabrics, etc. In softness and mellowness of tinting, these are not comparable with similar styles resulting from using mixture yarns, but they form such an important description of woven pattern as to deserve specific analysis.

In Donegal (Pattern 1, Plate XXVI.) and other extreme fancy mixtures, specks of bright colour are obtained in the yarn, which give richness of character without that complete mixing of fibres which is the ordinary style of blend.

88. Figures.—Necessarily these are very minute in dimensions and limited in form. Perhaps they might be also appropriately designated spotted patterns, but as the figures are of definable shapes, and are arranged on various bases, the former term appears the more suitable. This species of colouring is applied to cotton and woollen and worsted fabrics. Invariably the weaves are of an elementary grade. In these, neat and minutely figured styles are developed in considerable variety. Thus in the plain weave alone, several distinct patterns are obtainable; while in the celtic, or mat, and in the cassimere and six-end twills somewhat more broken-up figuring is acquired, which for some makes of cloths is preferable to designs consisting of pronounced and decided forms.

89. Classes of Striped Patterns.—All kinds of striped patterns may be comprised in two classes, namely, Regular and Irregular styles. In the former (Fig. 11, A, and Fig. 12, A) the bands of colours, however numerous they may be, are of equal widths, but in the latter (Figs. 11 and 12, B, C, D, etc.) they vary to an indefinite extent. The several species of stripes resulting from blending colours will be treated of as follows:—

I. Regular Stripes.

(a) Hairlines.
(b) Stripes of two colours.
(c) Stripes of three or more colours.

II. Irregular Stripes.

(d) Patterns of two colours.
(e) Patterns of three or more colours.
(f) Shaded patterns composed of several colours.

90. Hairlines.—These are the smallest striped patterns produced. The real hairline is composed of two colours, and is made extensively in woollen and worsted materials, but is also produced in cotton and other yarns. Standard hairlines are produced in the plain weave, prunelle, [3/1] twill, and the five-end sateen: also in mat and specially-constructed weaves. In the prunelle, three-line, in the [3/1] twill, four-line, and in the five-end sateen, five-line, or five-colour patterns are producible.

91. Compound Hairlines.—These consist (1) of two or more widths of lines with each grouped in series, of which Figs. 6 and 7, and Figs. 8 and 9 are types; (2) of hairline stripes combined with fancy, and irregular effects. Figs. 6 and 7 are both woven in the broken [3/1] twill, the former being coloured two-and-two in section A, 2 black, 2 twist in section B, and one-and-one in section C, the broad line of white being formed by grouping three white threads together. Fig. 7 is a compound of one-and-one and two-and-two warping, making the respective stripes A and B, which might be of any width and grouped together in various forms.

Fig. 8 is developed in mat weaves, arranged to produce two-and-two and four-and-four stripings, grouped as sketched. Fig. 9 is a compound of hairline effect, one-and-one warping in the broken [3/1] twill, section A, and of two-and-two warping in the [2/2] twill, section B, with a fancy twist stripe, C, on the latter.

92. Stripes composed of Longitudinal and Transverse Lines.—This pattern—sketched in Fig. 10—is a derivative of the common single-cloth hairline. It is due to changing the positions of the colours in relation to the intersections of the weave. Analysis of the fabric shows that in Sections A the light threads float over the light picks and the dark threads over the dark picks; whereas in Parts B the opposite rule obtains, viz., the light threads float under the light picks and the dark threads under the dark picks. As a consequence, the lines of colours in A are vertical, while those in B are horizontal. This arrangement of pattern is entirely due to the system of warp colouring, which is as follows:⁠—

The weft is 1 pick of white and 1 pick of grey throughout the pattern. Now as the plain weave has been employed, and is arranged to allow the white and grey threads in B to be crossed or covered by corresponding picks, it causes the same threads in A to float over the respective picks, producing this useful form of stripe, which is applicable to similar goods as those for which particulars are supplied in the preceding paragraph.

93. Stripes composed of Two Colours.—These are included in the elementary colour effects. A minimum amount of technical skill is requisite to their construction. The art of producing patterns of this description is confined to the selection and adjustment of appropriate shades. An illustration in the Regular order of stripes is given in No. 1, Plate XV. It is an Oxford shirting, the order of colouring being thus:⁠—

Such shades and tints as the following would form good patterns: No. 6, Plate IV., and white; No. 10, Plate IV., and white; and Nos. 12 and 16, Plate VI., and white. In each case white should be used for weft.

This class of pattern is largely applied to woollen and worsted textures. No. 2 on Plate XV. is an example. This style has been produced in the five-end doeskin and has a dress-face finish. The arrangement of colours is:⁠—

Warp.

Weft.

20 skeins olive.

Without multiplying illustrations, it will be evident how considerable diversity of styles is attainable on this system by varying the width of the stripes and the colours employed.

Specimens of Irregular stripes in two shades are given in Fig. 11, B, C, D, E, F, consisting of lines of different sizes in two shades. It will be seen from these that the method of grouping the lines, as well as the dimensions, determine the form of pattern produced.

94. Stripes composed of Three or More Colours (Fig. 12, B, C, D, and E).—As a larger number of shade elements enters into this kind of stripe than that just described, it follows that the patterns are somewhat more intricate in composition. Yet, as the weaves used are invariably of the simplest type, and the widths of the stripes of different shades in the patterns may be the same, little technical complication occurs in their production. One illustration will sufficiently indicate the nature of this type (Regular stripes) of woven colouring, No. 3 on Plate XV. Four shades are present in this fabric—blue, tan, slate, and crimson. The dark blue runs against all the shades and in this way an appropriate ground is produced on which the various shades may be developed. If slate were made the ground colour a totally different pattern would result; by changing the positions of the shades in this manner, a considerable range of styles is producible. These coloured examples and the forms of pattern in Fig. 12, show that this principle of colouring admits of extensive diversity of composition.

95. Irregular Stripes composed of Black and White Yarns.—These patterns are far more diversified in construction than regular styles. Even when limited to the use of these shades, a great variety of design arrangement may be practised. The line stripe effects (Fig. 13) are woven in warp-face weaves, such as the ten-heald buckskin (Fig. 13A) and weaves of the cord and corkscrew type. The warp colouring for the upper pattern is⁠—

the weft being a dark shade. Of course, any other two shades might be employed, e.g., Nos. 1 and 3, Plate IV., and No. 13 and No. 15, Plate VI.

As illustrative of the different effects that may be obtained in the same shades, Fig. 14 may be compared with the previous styles. It is a pattern over an inch in width, and composed of bands of three sizes. There are, first, bands A, containing twelve threads each; then bands b, containing six threads each; and, lastly, the small lines of white of two threads each. There are twelve white stripes: eleven stripes b, and one stripe of A, in each repeat of the pattern. Both this style, and those in Fig. 13, are of a decided character.