PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
Three years ago the first edition of my work on Woollen and Worsted Cloth Manufacture appeared, and in the preface of the book I observed that should it be satisfactorily appreciated I would write other treatises on specific branches of textile designing and weaving.
Partially in fulfilment of this promise, and partially because I have frequently been requested by designers, manufacturers, and students who have attended my lectures on textile colouring at Leeds, Huddersfield, and other places, to prepare a text-book on the application of colours to woven fabrics, this volume has been written, which, to use the hackneyed prefatory phrase, is intended to meet a long-felt want.
Though there are several useful works on Colour—to wit, those of Chevreul, Rood, Benson, Hay, Field, Maxwell, and Guichard—dealing with its scientific phases, yet they can scarcely be said to lend that kind of help to the student of applied design that is needed; hence the necessity of this handbook, which is the first treatise published professing to treat exclusively of the colouring of woven styles.
During the last fifteen years various efforts have been made to teach textile designing and manufacturing systematically, and to specify the principles which underlie the origination of pattern in the loom: what to some extent was, previously, haphazard work, inasmuch as there were no schools for teaching textile technology, and those apprenticed in the mill were generally allowed to glean information as best they could, has now become an exact science. Colouring, however, though practically of primary importance in design, has not been so efficiently taught as some branches of textile manufacturing. The object of this book is, therefore, to supply as far as possible a complete scheme of textile colouring, and to demonstrate the methods of applying fancy shades to all descriptions of woven manufactures.
Referring briefly to the plan of the book: In the early chapters the pigment and light theories of colour are expounded, and also the attributes and qualities of colours, and the laws of contrast and harmony. Subsequently, the technicalities characterizing woven colour combinations are analyzed in extenso.
As the initiatory method of introducing tints and shades into fabrics consists in blending raw materials of divers colours, the art of mixing to obtain artistic mingled compositions is at the outset fully considered. This part of the subject is possibly of the first importance to those engaged in designing fancy tweeds and kindred classes of woollen goods.
After having treated of the combination of shades in “blending,” reference is made to the principles of developing simple patterns by amalgamating warp and weft yarns. The various kinds of stripe, check, mixture, and figured effects, and the tinting of all types of single, backed, and double cloths, of combination patterns, of fabrics figured in the warp, in the weft, and in both warp and weft, are all treated of at length. Woollen, worsted, cotton, and silk fabrics, and the specific styles of colouring applicable to each, have also obtained detailed notice.
Many of the patterns printed on the plates have been woven at the Yorkshire College under my supervision, and are now published for the first time; while the other figures, with the exception of a small number appearing in the Textile Recorder in articles I have written for that journal, and which the Editor has kindly permitted me to use, have been specially prepared for this book. It need scarcely be observed that the coloured illustrations are unique, being exact representations of the woven textures.
I have pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to my publishers, who have done all in their power to meet my wishes in the execution of the plates of woven samples.
R. B.