PRINTING The yarns produced in the spinning process create some form of decoration in the fabric.

In the formation of the fabric, decoration is also obtained by the pattern of construction. The checker board pattern of the plain weave, the variations of the basket weave, the diagonal of the twill weave and the luster of the satin weave produce simple designs. This type of decoration becomes more elaborate as fabric construction advances to the use of third dimension in the pile weave to the open-mesh lace-like effect of the lappet weave and to the intricate effects of the jacquard weave and to the various knits and other types of fabric formation. When fabric passes through finishing operations it may be given lustrous effects that contribute further to its final appearance. Other finishing processes create the additional effects of soft napped surfaces and the crinkled designs seen in matelasse, seersucker, and similar crepes.Dyeing makes an important contribution to fabric decoration by the various beautiful colours it produces and the colour harmonies obtained by combination of the various methods of dyeing. Fabric can be further enhancedby printing coloured designs on the finished cloth. DISTINGUISHING PRINTING FROM DYEING To know whether a fabric has been dyed by immersion or whether the colour has merely been printed on the cloth, examine the outline of the design. On the printed fabric, the outline or edges of the design sharply defined on the right side. The entire design seldom penetrates to the back of the cloth. On sheer fabrics, the design may show up favourably on the reverse side because dye-stuffs will penetrate sheer construction. Such fabrics may intentionally stimulate woven designs, which use yarns. If the design has been imprinted , the yarns will show areas on which the colour is not equally distributed. DYES USED FOR PRINTING Most classes of dyes are adaptable to one or more of the various types of printing.the choice depends on the purpose for which the goods will be used, the fibre or fibres involved, and what the customer would be willing to pay for.Good fastness properties in prints are available and there is no reason why the consumer should settle for less than satisfactory fastness. Of the various dye classes the vat, reactive, mapthol and disperse colours will generally produce the needed fastness properties for most purposes. Another class called pigment colours are not truly dyes but are of utmost importance in printing. These colours are fixed to the fibres by means of resins that are very resistant to laundering or dry cleaning. The pigments are themselves among the fastest known colours to all normal influences.. For light to medium shades they are unbeatable but for full or dark shades they are impractical because the colours are not really absorbed by the fibre and will crock or rub off. This problem may be solved by improved resins, better pigments or more effective anti-crock agents.

For cotton printing, vat and reactive dyes are generally used. Pigments and some napthols are also used. Very cheap prints can be made with basic colours mixed with tartar emetic stannic acid, but todays domestic market has scarecely any room for such prints. Silk is usually printed with acid colours, wool , treated with chlorine to make it more receptive to colour is printed with acid or chrome dyes. Fabrics of manmade fibres are generally printed with disperse and cationic dyes. MACHINE PRINTING METHODS OF PRINTING One form of applying colour decoration to a fabric after it has otherwise been finished is called printing. Fabric that has to be printed must be singed, bleached and cleaned. There are 3 basic approaches to printing a colour on fabric : direct , discharge and resist. DIRECT PRINTING The most common approach for applying a colour pattern is direct printing. It may be done on a white fabric or over a previously dyed favric, in which case it is called over printing. The dye is imprinted on the fabric in paste form, and any desired pattern may be produced. The dyes are usually dissolved in a limited amount of water to which a thickening agent has been added to give the necessary viscosity to the print paste. Originally corn starch was much favoured for this purpose in cotton printing. Today gums and alginates derived from seaweeds are preferred because they are easier to wash out and do not themselves absorb any colour further more, the gums allow better penetration of colour, which is important for good printing. Most pigment printing is done without thickeners as such, the thickening is obtained by mixing together resins, solvents and water to produce necessary viscosity. DISCHARGE PRINTING Another approach for applying colour pattern is discharge printing ,but its use has been declining. In this process the fabric is previously dyed and then printed with a chemical that will destroy the colour in designed areas. Sometimes base colour is removed and another colour is put in its place , but usually a white area is desirable to brighten the overall design. When properly done discharge printing is thoroughly satisfactory, however discharge areas may literally fall out of the fabric if it is not washed thoroughly after printing. The usual method of producing discharged prints is to print the design , such as polka dots, woth a paste containg reducing agent. A steaming follows it and then a good washto remove the by products of reaction. RESIST PRINTING A third approach to obtaining a colour pattern is resist printing. Bleached goods are printed with a resist paste- a resinous substance that cannot be penetrated when the fabric is immersed in a dye. The dye will affect only the parts that are not covered by the resist paste. After a fabric has passed through a subsequent dyeing process, the resist paste is removed, leaving a pattern on a dark ground. In the discharge method the fabric is first dyed and the colour is then extracted by an imprinted chemical, in

the resist method a resist paste is first imprinted and the fabric is then dyed. The durability of the fabric is not affected by the resist method. HAND PRINTING BLOCK PRINTING The oldest method of printing designs on fabric is block printing by hand it is not commercially important today because it is too slow, printed fabric cannot be produced in expensively in large enough quantities by the hand blocked method. Block printing has usually done in countries where labour is not expensive, unlike the United States. Today fabric is block printed in comparatively short lengths of material. Block printing is found chiefly in decorative pieces for home or in expensive linens for upholstery purposes. To make block prints , the design must be carved on a wooden or metal block. The dye stuff is applied in paste form to the design on the face of the block. The block is pressed down firmly by hand on selected portions of the surface of the fabric, imprinting the carved design as many tines as designed on a specific length of cloth. To obtain variation of colour in the same design, as many additional blocks must be carved as there will be additional colours . The portions of the design that will appear in different colours must be separately imprinted by hand before each design is complete. The more colours used , the more valuable and expensive the blocked print will be, because of design as well as labor involved in the hand printing. Hand blocked prints can be recognized by noting slight irregularities in the detail and in the repetition of the design and by comparing areas for slight variation in colour. These irregularities are now immitated by machine printing, however. They give prints the characteristic appearance of expensive hand blocked prints.