Glossary of terms used on this site

From the French expression cord du roi. A hard wearing fabric woven in a special weave on a fine cotton warp. The weft floats of soft cotton yarn are then cut to produce wales, ribs or cords running the length of the fabric. There are a variety of different types of corduroy: needlecord 16 to 21 cords per inch, partridge cord or thickset cord 8 to 11 cords per inch, constitution cord 5 to 7 wales per inch and elephant cord, with very wide wales of only 3 to 4 wales per inch, algoa cord, which is a fancy cord, and knitted corduroys. Originally developed in the 17th and 18th centuries in France where it was used extensively for servants\' clothes in the royal households hence it became known as cord du roi. Known today in France as velours cotele, in Spain as pana.

A yarn produced by a spinning process which puts a continuous filament or core yarn, such as an rubber elastic, elastomeric filament  (for elasticity) or polyester filament (for strength), under tension and covers it with a sheath of other types of staple fibres such as cotton or wool.

A type of hand or power operated silk reeling machine commonly used in villages. A simplified version of a multi-end reeling machine. Requires seperate cocoon cooking system and re-reeling is necessary.

The word comes from the Arabic word qutn or qutun meaning cotton.  A long unicellular seed fibre grown on the outer skin of the cotton seed. Belongs to the mallow family as do hibiscus and okra. Vary from 10mm to 55mm in length, wild varieties, gossypium thurberi, are brown in colour and cultivated hybrid types, from which they derive, are white.

The length of cotton fibre, known as staple length, is classified in three main groups:

• Fine, over 30mm long staple, high lustre fibre

Best quality cotton: Sea Island (39mm and over in staple length, grown in the West Indies, Central America and Mexico), Egyptian, Sudanese, Peruvian, American Pima and East African (between 30mm to 38mm)

• Medium, between 26mm to 29mm long staple American Upland (the bulk of production in the United States of America)
• Short, below 26mm long staple, coarse fibre India and China

Before cotton is spun into yarn the fibre is put through a series of pre-spinning processes:

Picking
Bales of cotton are sent from the ginnery (the gin) and arrive at the spinning mill and are first put through the bale-breaker and then onto the opener. The opener literally opens the compressed cotton fibre ready for the following rigorous processes. The cotton, having then been cleaned in the picker (or scutcher) and all the seeds and heavy impurities are extracted, enters the lap former which produces a continuous roll, 50mm thick x 1000mm wide, of semi-cleaned cotton fibre, called a lap.

Carding
The lap is passed through a set of revolving cards which disentangles and begins to align the fibres. As the carded cotton comes off the card (carding machine) a thin web, about 10mm thick, is produced and is rolled into loose rope of fibre called a sliver.

Combing
The finest quality cotton yarns are spun with combed cotton, therefore the importance of this process is to eliminate all short fibres and parallel all the remaining long fibres. The short fibres, called noils, are usually blended with shorter cottons and spun into cheaper, carded yarns. The combing process produces a continuous rope (20mm diameter) of clean straight cotton fibre called a sliver.

Drawing
Several slivers are combined and blended through the draw frame, eliminating any further irregularities, to form a single sliver.  By combining the slivers to make one sliver, in this process, it ensures that any variations in the ultimate yarn are eliminated.

Roving
The sliver is drawn out still further into a finer strand about the 8mm thick and a slight twist put into it to form the roving.

Spinning
The roving is now drawn out still further and twisted to produce a single yarn.  It is at this stage that the speed of the roving entering the rollers of the spinning machine is strictly controlled to produce a specific size (count) of yarn.  The singles yarn can then be doubled on a doubler to produce a two-fold yarn.

The seed pod containing the cotton seeds and cotton fibres. As the pressure in side the pod increases during the growing period, the expanding cotton seed hairs build up. The pod bursts open revealing a fluffy ball of cotton known as the boll.

A machine invented by Eli Whitney 1794 to mechanically strip and separate the cotton fibre from the seed.  Ginning is normally done in or near the field where the cotton is grown and before it is transported in bales to the mill.

Hard cotton waste comes from spinning, reeling, winding machines and looms. Soft cotton waste comes from the earlier processes where the fibres are looser with no twist and not compacted. Hard cotton waste can be used for cleaning down machinery. Soft cotton waste is often reprocessed to produce a batt or web of cotton wool for medical or cosmetic purposes.

A system for measuring the fineness or thickness of yarn by spinners, weavers and knitters. In Scotland the term is known as grist. In all other English speaking countries the term count is used.

A number is used to indicate the size of the yarn and is calculated from one of the following indirect or direct systems:

Indirect fixed weight system
The number of length units per weight unit

Direct fixed length system
The number of weight units per length unit

A small magnifying glass mounted in a small hinged metal frame with a fixed focus the base having an aperture measuring either one square inch or one square centimetre. Used for counting the ends and picks, courses and wales in a fabric. Also known as a linen prover or pick glass.

A coarse, rough linen or cotton/linen twill or granite weave fabric possibly originating from Russia where it was woven from unbleached linen.

A white crystalline compound made by purifying argol, potassium hydrogen tartrate. Used often in combination with alum as a mordant in vegetable dyeing.

A frame to hold spools, cheeses, cones or any package from which yarn is taken to produce a warp.  Creels can be horizontal or upright depending on the type of package used. 

A general classification of fabrics made of silk, cotton, wool or man-made fibres or combination of fibres to produce a range of crinkled, grained or textured surface effects. Can be made by using hard twist yarns, chemical treatments, weave constructions or embossing.

A soft, thin, opaque and lightweight fabric with a crinkled effect.  Woven with alternate S and Z highly twisted weft threads and untwisted warp threads. Alternate picks are of opposite twists resulting in a crimpy appearance on the fabric.