Terms and Phrases

Abrasion Resistance
A technical term used to describe resistance of fabric against damage caused by
wear and tear. It is usually expressed in rubs (see 'Martindale').

ASTM
American Society for Testing and Materials.

Beaming
The process during warp making in which the ends are drawn from the warping creel
and spread out into sheet form and then wound onto a long beam.

BIFMA
Business and International Furniture Manufacturers' Association.

Bleeding
Colour loss from coloured cloth when in contact with a liquid.

Blending 
Blending is the mixing process of various fibres. It normally mixes fibres of different
physical properties to ensure a consistent finished product.

Bow 
The curving of the warp or weft within a cloth.

BS 
British Standard.

Carbonising 
A chemical process for removing vegetable contamination from animal fibres.

Carding 
A process involving the movement of natural fibres between two surfaces covered
with wire pins in order to detangle and align the fibres in preparation for spinning.

CMHR 
Foam Combustion modified high resilient foam.

Cockle 
The wrinkled effect visible on a fabric resulting from inconsistent shrinkage.

Colour and weave effect 

An effect that is produced when different coloured warp and weft threads are woven
together resulting in distinctive weaves.

Colour matching 
The adjustment of the proportions of various dyes present in a piece of cloth to
suitably match a given sample.

Combing 
The straightening of carded fibres and the removal of impurities by using a comb
assisted by brushes.

Composition 
The quantity of each fibre used to make a fabric.

Condition 
The moisture present in a textile fibre in its raw form.

Cone 
Conical base onto which yarn is wound producing a cone.

Count of Yarn 
Number indicating the mass per unit length or the length per unit mass of a yarn. (A
measure of its thickness).

Creel
A frame onto which textile packages are mounted.

Crepe fabric 
A fabric characterised by a crinkled or puckered surface.

Crimp
Naturally occuring or synthetic waviness of a fibre.

Crocking An alternative phrase for rubbing as in fastness to rubbing.

Crop To remove loose fibres from the cloth's surface after it has been woven. Cross
colour The use of different coloured warp and weft threads.

CRE 
Denotes constant rate of extension on a tensile strength testing machine.

CRT 
Denotes constant rate of traverse on a tensile strength testing machine.

Decatizing 
A pressing process used to improve the quality and appearance of fabric. Fabric is
wrapped around a perforated roller whilst steam is blown through it, circulating
throughout the fabric. This is a process used mainly for woollen fabrics.
Differential dyeing 
Usually descriptive of fibres of the same generic class, but having potentially
different dyeing properties from the standard fibre.

Dobby 
A mechanism that controls the heald shaft movement of a loom.

Double cloth 
A compound fabric produced by the weaving together of two pieces of cloth.

Dry clean 
The treatment of fabric in an organic solvent to remove any grease, dirt or oil.

Dyeing 
A process used to apply colour to a yarn or fabric.

Ecru 
The natural colour state of a fabric before it is exposed to the colouring processes.

End 
1. (spinning) An individual strand 
2. (Weaving) An individual warp thread

Ends per inch/cm 

The density of warp threads per inch/cm in fabric.

Face 
The side of the fabric that is intended to be visible on the finished product.

FAR 
Federal Aviation Regulation.

Fibre 
The basic raw materials in textiles which can be natural or man-made.

Finishing 
A collection of processes taking place after weaving which fabrics undergo before
they are ready for despatch.

Flame Retardant 
The ability of fabric to resist burning.

Float 
A length of yarn on the surface of a fabric between adjacent intersections of warp
and weft threads.

Foam Backing 
Foam adhered to the back of a fabric to enhance its resilience.

Greasy / Greige / Grey Piece 

Terms used to describe a textile product before being bleached, dyed or finished.

Heald 
A flat steel strip, looped cord, or shaped wire with an eye in the centre through which
warp yarn is threaded. 

Heald shaft 
A frame complete with healds.

Herringbone 
A combination of twill weaves in which the direction of twill is reversed to produce
stripes resembling herring bones.

HR Foam 
High resilient foam.

Hue 
A characteristic of colour that denotes it being predominantly yellow, green, red or
blue.

ISO 
International Standards Organisation.

Jacquard (weaving) 
A shedding mechanism attached to the loom that gives individual control of up to
several hundred warp threads and thus enables large complex designs to be
produced.

Jacquard Harness (weaving) 

A group of cords and their attachments, from the hooks of the machine downwards
that control the lifting of the warp threads.

Light Fastness 
Resistance to the fading effect of light or sunshine.

Loom 
A weaving machine that produces cloth.

Loom State 
Any piece of woven fabric as it leaves the loom before undergoing subsequent
processes.

Martindale 
An abrasion test used to measure the durability of fabric.The warp and weft threads
are abraded simultaneously.

Mending The correction of faults and imperfections in fabric by hand.

Metamerism 
The change in colour which can result in a fabric due to a change in lighting - for
example, viewing fabric in daylight as opposed to artificial light. Normally avoided by
correct dye selection.

Micro Fibre 
A microscopically small fibre or filament (nominally 1.7 dTex or less).

Milling 
A process that compacts woven or knitted fabrics to alter the handle of the fabric.

NFPA 
National Fire Protection Association.

Overlocking 
The joining of two pieces of fabric by double stitching over and around the edges.

Pick 
A weft thread passing through the warp in weaving.

Picks per inch/cm 

The number of weft threads per inch/cm of fabric.

Piece 
An accepted unit length of fabric.

Piece Dyeing 
Fabric dyed in piece form.

Pilling 
Small bobbles of fabric that develop on the fabric surface due to general wear and
tear.

Reed 
Comb-like feature of a loom through which the warp ends pass.

Regain 
The weight of moisture present in a textile fabric expressed as a % of the oven dry
weight.

Roving 
An assembly of parallel fibres; the feedstock for worsted spinning.

Sateen 
A weft faced satin woven fabric with floats lying horizontally as opposed to vertically.

Satin 
A warp faced satin fabric with floats lying predominantly vertical.

Scouring 
The washing process of fabric or yarn to remove dirt or grease.

Scotchgard¨ 
A branded chemical finish that increases a fabric's resistance to oil, dirt and water.

Selvedge 
The side edges of a finished piece of cloth that are reinforced to prevent unravelling.

Shed 
The gap formed when warp threads are separated during the weaving action.

Shuttle
The mechanism on a loom that carries the weft thread through the shed to interlace
with the warp.

Skew 
A distortion in the cloth where warp and weft do not fall at exact right angles to one
another resulting in a skew. 

Slippage 
Open spaces in the fabric resulting from sliding of weft threads or shifting of warp
threads.

Spinning 
The drawing out and twisting of fibres to produce a yarn.

Stenter/Tenter 
A finishing machine used for drying and to set fabric width.

Synthetic fibres 
Man-made fibres produced using petrochemicals.

Tensile Strength 
The breaking strength of a fabric, usually expressed in Newtons.

Textured 
yarns Man-made filament yarns which have been treated by heat and/or mechanical
action to imitate the appearance and properties of natural fibre yarns.

Twill 
A diagonal weave effect created by the passing of weft threads over two or more
warp ends. 

Warp 
The lengthways threads in a woven fabric.

Warping 
The arrangement of threads in long parallel lengths ready for weaving.

Weave 
Formation of fabric by interlacing the warp and weft threads.

Weft 
The horizontal yarns that interlace at right angles with the vertical warp threads.

Width
This is the width of the fabric measured from within the selvedges.

Woollen spun 
Loosely twisted yarns spun from short fibres resulting in a bulky yarn with a hairy
surface. 

Worsted spun 
Tight compact yarns spun from combed long wool fibres to produce a strong, even
and smooth product.
Testing

A broad range of tests are carried out throughout the textile industry which measure
the performance and specification of the raw materials used and finished goods
produced.

This section looks at some of the main tests undertaken on finished fabrics, which
evaluate how the fabric performs across different areas. The British Standard 2543:
1995 is a broad based standard defined as "The specification for woven and knitted
fabrics for upholstery" which sets performance limits for abrasion, colour fastness
and strength (tear and tensile). These and some of the other main tests for fabrics
are described below. Please note that flammability testing forms a separate section.

Abrasion resistance - Martindale (BS 5690: 1991 (1997)) 

In this test, undertaken on a Martindale machine, the fabric is rubbed against a
worsted fabric to simulate wear and tear. 

The apparatus records the number of cycles - or rubs - to which the fabric has been
exposed until a physically significant end point is reached. The end point is when
three threads on the fabric have worn to the extent of actually breaking and the
abrasion value is the number of cycles completed at the time of breaking. The fabric
is abraded at a pressure of 800g/12 Kilo Pascals and abradants are changed every
50,000 cycles.

Within BS 2543, five classifications and associated fabric performance levels are
specified for various types of end usage.

Resistance to pilling 
This test establishes the fabric's tendency to form pills (bobbles) using the
Martindale abrasion machine. Two samples of fabric are tested, one being removed
from the machine after 2000 cycles and the other after 6000 cycles. Both samples
are then graded on a scale of 1 - 5 (using BS5811: 1986), "1" indicating severe
change and "5" no change. The worst grade of the two samples is taken as the
result.

Colour fastness 
Colour fastness is a measure of how permanent a colour is on fabric. Colour can be
adversely affected by a number of factors including exposure to light, to water and
to normal wear and tear. Various tests assess how the colour is affected by these
different parameters and a numerical value is then established to indicate the
degree of colour change. 

Colour fastness to light (BS 1006: 1990) 

In this test, a prepared specimen of fabric is half covered and exposed to artificial
ultraviolet light along with a scale of light sensitive blue dyed wool standards
designed to fade after different time periods. Only the uncovered part of the test
sample will be subject to any fading. Typical exposure time is 100 hours which
represents approximately four years' daylight. 
The light fastness is evaluated on a scale of 1 - 8 using the blue dyed wool
standards, where "1" indicates very low light fastness (maximum colour change) and
"8" indicates very high light fastness (minimum colour change). According to BS
2543, upholstery fabrics should display a minimum rating of "5" regardless of end
usage.

Colour fastness to rubbing (BS 1006: 1990) This test is undertaken on a crock

meter, whereby the fabric specimen is subjected to rubbing with a sample of
standard undyed cotton fabric in order to check for colour transfer.
Two tests are involved, one using the rubbing cloth dry, the other with the cloth
wetted. The rubbing cloth is placed on the finger of the crock meter and moved back
and forth across the fabric sample ten times at a steady speed. The rubbing cloth is
then evaluated using standard "Grey Scales" for staining, on which "1" signifies
maximum staining and "5" no staining. According to BS 2543, for all grades of end
use, fabrics must show a maximum staining of "3 - 4" for dry rubbing and "3" for wet
rubbing.

Colour fastness to water 

This test, carried out using a perspirometer, is used to determine if any colour
transfer occurs when wet fabrics come into contact. 
The fabric sample is fully immersed in deionised water together with strip of multi-
fibre fabric (as its name suggests, this is a strip containing materials of different
compositions). Each item is then placed in the perspirometer and left for four hours
in a pre-heated oven at 37oC. The multi-fibre strip is then assessed for colour
staining using the standard Grey Scales.

Tensile (breaking) strength (BS 2576: 1986) 

Fabric samples are clamped in the jaws of a tensile tester and pulled apart until they
break. Three samples are tested across the warp and three across the weft and the
average breaking strength established is expressed in Newtons. BS 2543 states
that tensile strength should be as follows for the different grades of intended duty:

Occasional domestic = 300N 

Light domestic/General domestic = 350N 
Severe domestic/Severe contract = 400N

Tear strength (BS 4303: 1968) 

This test measures the force required to continue a tear which has already been
started in the fabric. A cut is made in a rectangular sample to form two "tongues"
and reference lines are marked to indicate the point the tear is to be continued to.
One tongue is then placed in the upper jaw of a tensile tester, the other tongue in
the lower jaw, and the two jaws opened to continue the tear to the reference line.
The average tear strength is then calculated.

Again, BS 2543 specifies minimum tear strength for different uses:

Occasional domestic/Light domestic = 15N 

General domestic/Severe domestic = 20N 
Severe contract = 25N
Colour Matching

Colour is one of the most fundamental aspects of textile design which contributes greatly to the overall visual effect of
a finished fabric. Colour matching is a vital process in ensuring continuity of colour from the master standard to all
subsequent production batches.

The three components of colour matching 

There are three components involved in colour matching which are illustrated below. If any component changes, the
actual perception of colour will also change.

Colour matching requires the use of a standard light box which has several illuminants:-

D65 - daylight
A - tungstun 
CWF - Cool White Fluorescent

Everybody's perception of colour is slightly different. Light boxes are therefore employed so that whenever samples
are viewed the conditions are exactly the same.

Colour Space 
Every colour has a colour space which can be pinpointed by coordinates given by a computer. Colour can also be
checked by eye and given a colour space, but again this is open to subjectivity.

The three fundamental aspects of colour are lightness, chroma and hue.

Lightness is shown on the "L" axis. It indicates the depth of a colour, ranging from white to black with grey in
between. One way of picturing depth of colour would be to imagine a black and white photograph where every colour
is shown as a different depth of black, white or grey. The lightness of the fabric sample would be represented by a
number on the "L" axis.

Chroma is shown as the distance away from the "L" axis.

If the colour is described as being at the very outside edge of chroma it will appear to the observer to be very clean
and bright. As it moves towards the grey central "L" axis it will become greyer, flatter and more dirty.

Hue is the variation in colour. For example, a blue may be very red - moving towards purple lilac - and would appear
in the blue colour space at the red side. Different shades of blue would all appear in the blue colour space but in
different areas.

Lightness, chroma and hue are checked on all yarns and piece dyed fabrics to ensure colour continuity standards are
maintained to the highest levels. They can be represented as a three dimensional figure.