The Chinese word pen-chi means hand woven or woven at home. Other types of pongee are: shantung, hohan, antung and ninghai. The warp is finer than the weft which is usually a dupionyarn often mistaken for so called wild silk because of its creamy colour.
The term poplin comes from the French word popeline, which is a fabric used for church vestments originally made in the papal city of Avignon in southern France. Poplin is a lightweight, closely woven cotton fabric with very fine ribs across the width of the cloth. The ribs are created by using a fine mercerized yarn in the warp and a thicker one in the weft. Although traditionally made in 100% fine, high lustre cotton, poplin is now woven with cotton and staplepolyester fibre blends. There are many weights and types of poplin the most common of which are used for shirts or pyjamas. Historically poplin was originally woven with silk in the warp and a fine worsted weft. Sometimes referred to, even now, as popeline or Irish poplin.
There are several basic methods or techniques used in printing textiles:
Hand methods
Block. Usually the blocks are made of wood, engraved by hand, or imbedded with wire nails or metal strips, or pieces of rubber to form a design. Used extensively in India.
Screen. A wooden or metal frame on which a fine even silk or polyesterfabric is stretched and blocked in predetermined areas by a variety of processes to allow a dye-gum to be pressed through the open areas with a squeegee. The blocked areas act as a stencil. Practised in Japan since the eighth century. Known as Table printing in the United States of America.
Mechanical methods
Screen. Similar to the hand method but more automated with the squeegee being mechanically passed from one side of the screen to the other.
Rotary screen. While the squeegee is static, unlike the flat screen method, the engraved cylindrical metal screen rotates as the cloth is moved. Sometimes as many as 12 to 14 cylinders, each printing a seperate colour, can be used on the same print table.
Roller. The design is engraved by line into the surface of a metal roller, the engrave line being filled with the dye and then transferred to the cloth under slight pressure.
Duplex. Printing by rollers on both sides of the fabric at the same time so that the design coincides and produces a reversible fabric.
Sublistatic. Printing a fabric, usually polyester, from a pre-printed (with dye) patterned paper. Sometimes referred to as transfer or heat transfer printing.
A piece of homespun woollen fabric originally made from the hair of the Kabul goat. Originating in the Himalayas a derivation of the puttu became known as puttee (approximately 150mm wide and 3600mm long) when adopted by the army to spiral round their legs for protection. The Hindi word puttu has other local spellings: puttoo, pattoo, pati - meaning bandage. Shawls and blankets are given local names in India: puttu chet, pattu pashmini, pattu abshar - a striped cloth, and pattu kundrang - a fine blanket made with camel hair and then embroidered.