Colour in woven design

II.—Colouring for Worsted Suitings.

[14]⁠Warp and Weft.

III.—Colouring for Woollens.

[14]⁠Warp and Weft.

In the first colouring, the ground of the fabric is a composition of tan and fawn grouped on the thread-and-thread system, the spotting yarns being pale blue and rose pink. The second scheme is for textures consisting of one solid shade in the ground; the surface of the fabric in this instance is dark blue mixture, having the check spotting produced by the weave—Fig. 189—in fancy worsted and silk twists. The third arrangement is a simple four-and-four check composed of black and blue, the spots falling in different parts of the checks. Should it be necessary to have the spotting always in the centre of the four threads, the construction of the design would have to be modified. Instead of the arrangement being five threads of ground to one thread of spotting, it would require to be four threads of ground to one thread of spotting.

202. Advantages of the Warp and Weft Method of Spotting.—In all fabrics in which spotting is the chief characteristic, the warp and weft principle of design construction is the most effective. Mantlings of a matelasse order, worsted dress textures, fancy cottons for vestings and quiltings, are all spotted by this method. Allowing, as it does, for the employment of a double series of spotting yarns, it yields patterns characterized by much diversity of tinting and intermingled effects. By causing the two sets of spotting threads to interlace with each other, and arranging for them to be of different colours, patterns full of textural details are produced. Still, for ordinary suiting fabrics either the warp or weft method is generally practised, because in these textiles the spotting yarns are only intended to dot the surface of the fabric with minute specks of bright colouring, and not to form decided patterns, as in mantling and dress styles.

203. Yarns used for Spotting.—The yarns used for spotting purposes are of various types. All classes of fancy threads, including knop yarns produced in carding, but single in construction, and twists or folded yarns of various types are used.

The first type is that employed in the production of Donegal tweeds, where the yarns are single, but coloured knops or specks are formed at intervals on the thread. These are due to distributing on the material, during carding, neps of fibrous material of different colours, which enter into the condensed sliver and become part of the spun thread. By this method the position of the colour on the thread is not mechanically controlled, but the selection of the nebs of fibres used for spotting determines the harmony of colour result in the woven fabric. There must first be a suitable blend of ground colour obtained in the carding of the material, and this having been fixed, the strength and blend of colour for nepping purposes is arranged. No Donegal pattern would be satisfactory in colour quality—which is the chief design characteristic such fabrics possess—unless the nepping colours gave strength and character of contrast to the ground colouring, as seen in No. 1, Plate XXVI.

Some of the fancy and folded threads used for similar purposes as knop carded yarns, are those illustrated in Plate XXV., comprising 3-ply, cloud, knop produced in twisting, curl, and gimp yarns. Yarns A, B, and C are ordinary threefold twists, being composed thus: A, black and scarlet worsteds, and salmon silk; B, black and green worsteds, and salmon silk; C, black, russet, and orange. For spotted worsteds, there are few yarns so useful as this class of worsted and silk twists. Samples D, E, F, G, and H are cloud threads. They are chiefly used in fancy tweeds. As a rule, they are rich in colouring. Threads D, E, G, and H are analogous in construction, for they are all composed of four colours and have one thread, which may be termed the central or principal yarn, all other threads twisting or twining round it. The composition of these respective twists is as follows:⁠—

D. Black for the central thread or shade, and crimson, green, and blue for the intermittent colours.

E. Grey for the central thread or shade, and scarlet, black, and tan for the intermittent colours.

G. Dark olive for the central thread or shade, and blue, yellow, and light olive for the intermittent colours.

F. Light drab for the central thread or shade, and black, scarlet, and tan for the intermittent colours.

Obviously, the result of using such yarns is to spot the surface of the texture with the various tints entering into their composition.

Threads F, being of several thicknesses, differ in construction from threads D, E, G, and H. Still, this type of thread gives effects in the fabric somewhat resembling those resulting from the yarns with which it is grouped, and is also designated a “cloud” or “flock.” It is, however, less complex in colouring, and forms an elongated spot in the texture.

The curled yarns are illustrated in types I, J, and K. Three examples are given—slate, crimson, and fawn. The curls or loops are of different sizes. Such threads are applied to both woollen and worsted fabrics, but mainly to tweeds and fancy costumes. They give to the pattern a richly-tinted aspect. Some classes of trimmings may be made entirely of these threads, but their relation to spotted fabrics is here alone considered.

Gimp and knop twists are also employed largely in designs of a spot class. Five illustrations of these are given in samples L, M, N, O, and P on Plate XXV. These threads are generally only applied to the more fancy designs. Yarn L is a composition of three threads—black, blue, and tan. The black and blue form a two-ply twist to which the tan is added in the twisting operation. Small knops, causing the yarn to be somewhat irregular in thickness, are formed at intervals by the tan thread. Compound M is more irregular in colouring and construction. Loose in twine, and of various thickness, it gives a novel type of spot, but on account of the lack of adhesiveness in its composition it is a difficult thread to manipulate in weaving, and hence is but sparingly employed. Yarn N is a real gimp. Two black threads, well tensioned in twisting, have been combined with yellow and crimson threads of slack twist, and running loosely. Thread O is similarly constructed to N, only the gimp is not so prominent, owing to the several colours being more evenly tensioned during twisting. Compound P is a combination of gimp and knop. Thus knops or buttons of tan colour—see a—are formed at intervals on the thread. Yarns N, O, and P are suitable twists for spotted goods of various descriptions.

204. Spotted Effects in Ordinary Weaves.—The several classes of spotted patterns analyzed have all resulted from the employment of special builds of weaves. There are, however, some important species of these effects obtained in designs constructed on the ordinary principles of intertexture, which are extensively developed in both plain and ornamental fabrics. Allusion will now be made to several types of these patterns. It may be observed that in producing the spotting in these styles the fancy twists described in the preceding paragraph are utilized. Pattern No. 1 on Plate XXVII. is a specimen of fancy tweed spotted by this method. The cloth is woven from a twelve-end twill, the weft being black, and the order of warping as appended:⁠—

• 2 threads of dark blue.
• 1 thread of black and tan curl.
• 2 threads of dark brown.
• 1 thread of black, brown, and white small curl.
• 2 threads of dark grey.
• 1 thread of black and blue curl.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that the curled yarns are the main elements of this colouring, spotting the fabric with small loops of tan, blue, and white. Knop, cloud, and gimp threads are similarly introduced into fancy fabrics. The effect of the knop twist is seen in the next illustration—Pattern No. 2, Plate XXVII. The minute figuring is due to combining two broken crow weaves. It is a style of design for union mantlings, and is capable of being varied to an unlimited extent in both colouring and ornament. The warp is entirely composed of brown and white knop cotton twist. The dots of white noticed in the texture are a product of the warp yarns, and not of any peculiarity in the structure of the weave or design. Such an irregularly spotted combination as this sample is only producible by yarns of the knop and cloud kind.

A third example, full of colour elements, No. 1, Plate XXVIII., may be described. It has been designed for a fancy coloured costume in the plain weave, and is illustrative of the variety of effect producible by order of warping and wefting, and diversity of yarn structure in which hues, tints, and shades of colours are used. The yarns are of six varieties, A, B, C, D, E, and F, being composed of two or more colours, and all different in construction. A is a pronounced knop yarn; B a curl yarn, of four varieties of colour, namely, deep crimson, orange, pale orange, and green; C shows the difference in thickness and in wavy effect possible in gimp yarns; D, irregular twist with knops of fibres; E and F, more ordinary twists, slack and hard spun intermittently. These, when arranged as in the fabric to make a check pattern, with over-checking in green, make a groundwork of colour which can only be acquired in textiles by using diversity of yarn structure. Blending in the material, or distributing colour in the weave, as in the spotted designs, Nos. 168 to 180, all repeat the colour regularly or in a prescribed pattern; but when the yarns are so diversified in construction, the colours are, as seen in the fabric, not selected on any definite method.

205. Application of Fancy Yarns to Compound Weaves.—Only two examples need be considered here, as the character of the results is similar to that of those obtained in single weave fabrics; only by reversing the position of the threads in the warp and weft, a prescribed form of pattern, see Plate XXIX., may be produced. On this principle, any type of design, as to figure or form, may be constructed, but it will have the same varied tinting as single weave fabrics, in which similar yarns are used. In this design, fancy knops and other cotton twists have been used. These yarns give the spots of lavender, tan, and scarlet, which are regularly distributed throughout the pattern. It is a double-weave structure arranged one thread ground, one thread of fancy yarn, and one thread of ground.

A different example produced in worsted yarns, and worsted and cotton twists, is that given in No. 2, Plate XXVI. It is double in structure, arranged one thread ground, and one thread fancy yarn, and not two-and-one, as the style on Plate XXIX. The ground yarn is a single thread, forming the plain portions of the fabric, the curled yarn being in dark crimson, heliotrope, orange, and pale orange. A certain simple outline of pattern is formed by reversing the face and backing yarns. It is a good blend of colour, in which there is contrast of hue between the heliotrope and orange, and contrast of tone between the crimson and heliotrope; but the chief characteristic is the diversity of colour surface due to the curl or loop twist yarns, and the way in which the colours in consequence of their arrangement are softened in quality.