Weaving

History

•Weaving is as old as humanity itself, dated back to even the Paleolithic era

•Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them

•Before the Industrial Revolution, weaving was a manual craft, usually undertaken part-time by family craftspeople

•The first fabric factory opened in Great Britain in 1785

Vocabulary

•Weaving is a textile craft in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced to form a fabric or cloth.

•Textile is another word for cloth or fabric

•Loom is a tool used to weave fabric; it can be operated by hand or by a machine

Below is a Floor Loom

Below is a Simple Loom

•The threads which run lengthways are called the warp and the threads which run across from side to side are the weft or filling.

•The way the warp and filling threads interlace with each other is called the weave

•Shuttle is the name for the tool that carries the weft thread back and forth through the warp threads

•Beater Bar is the part of the loom that is used to compact the threads to make the fabric tight