Glossary of terms used on this site

The term cards is often used when referring to hand or mechanical carding devices for pre-processing any fibrous material before spinning. See carding and spinning.

Neoglazovia variegata. Native to Brazil, yields a soft, white, flexible fibre with a tensile strength three times that of jute. It has a soft lustre and can be anything from three to seven feet in length. Used principally for cordage, rope and very coarse fabrics. Also known as caraua, caroa, carao, craua or croa.

Low to medium lustre hair from the downy undercoat of a hybrid goat; the male angora goat crossed with a feral female cashmere goat. 

The fine, soft hair, resembling wool from beneath the guard hair of the Asiatic goat (capra hircus laniger).  Similar to the pashmina (Persian for woollen) goat found in northern India (Kashmir and Himachel Pradesh), Nepal, Tibet and China. Attempts have been made to produce similar quality fibre from feral goats bred in Australia, New Zealand and Scotland. See also pashmina.

Sodium hydroxide. Used in many textile processes including viscose rayon production, mercerizing, boiling-out, dyeing and printing.  Causticizing is a treatment given to cellulosic fabric to improve the colour yield in printing and dyeing particularly with reactive dyes.

A honeycomb, leno or mock-leno loosely woven cloth with an open-weave construction.  Aertex is probably the most famous cotton cellular fabric ever produced.

A carbohydrate polymer found in organic woody substances of most vegetation. The basic raw material in the production of rayon and acetate fibres. Cotton is 96% cellulose.

Filaments spun from a solidified acetic acid ester of cellulose.

The same as hopsack weave. See hopsack and Appendix weaves.

A woollen blanket or large shawl woven in India.  Also called chadur, chadder, chadar, chaddah or chudder.

A white fabric handwoven from handspun local cotton in Ethiopia. 

The chambon croissure (French) is composed of two groups of silk filaments which cross between the cocoon and the distributor on a silk reeling machine.  The reason for doing this is to allow agglutination of the silk filaments of several cocoons to form a compact yarn.  The cross also squeezes out water from the yarn as it is being reeled.  This process also acts as a form of quality control as the weak filaments break under its tension.  An alternative Italian device is called a tavelette.

A lightweight cotton cloth, usually woven in checks or stripes and used in the manufacture of dresses and shirts.  The word comes from Cambrai, a town in the northern part of France near the Belgian border where the fabric originated.

An Indian spinning wheel. Also hand or foot operated spinning machine. All hand and foot operated spinning machines in India are used to spin cotton, wool or silk yarns for khadi (hand-spun,hand-woven) cloths. Also spelt charaka. See khadi.

Newly hatched silkworm.