Weave

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Simplest type of fabric in plain weave
Schematic drawing of the construction through warp thread (1) and weft thread (2)

The weaving is one of the oldest techniques of the manufacture of textile fabrics, wherein at least two thread systems, the chain ( warp ) and the weft ( weft yarn ) at right angles are crossed. The pre-tensioned warp threads form the carrier into which the weft threads are drawn in one after the other from one selvedge to the other through the entire weaving width. The product is called fabric in the technical language , a term that includes both cloth (colloquially: "fabric") and other products such as woven carpets or wallpaper .

description

The technique of weaving differs from that of braiding insofar as the threads cross each other diagonally rather than at right angles. Related, but not identical, to weaving is picture knitting , in which the weft threads are not worked in through the entire weaving width, but only back and forth as far as the edge of a given color area.

The device required for fabric production is the loom. The original hand loom was improved over the millennia, increasingly automated from the 18th century and finally replaced by the loom in the course of the industrial revolution . The vast majority of global production is now machine-made.

history

Weaving in ancient Egypt
Weaving in 15th century Europe

After wood and stone processing, weaving is one of the oldest crafts of mankind and has been proven for 32,000 years, considerably longer than pottery . In the burial chambers of Egyptian antiquity , remains of the tissue of clothing have been found.

Weight looms were known at least since the Neolithic . In these, the warp threads were attached to a horizontal beam with a weaving weight and left hanging. Some researchers assume that weaving took place as early as the Upper Paleolithic , as evidenced by clay prints from the Moravian Pavlov . A number of Neolithic textiles made from either flax or wool have come down to us from the wetland settlements in Switzerland . In addition, bark (from linden , elm and oak ) was also used. Weight looms were used until the Middle Ages . The weaving material of the Bronze Age is best known from finds from Danish tree coffins . In Egtved you can find the first known mini skirt in history.

Woven textiles and carpets helped the trading Assyrians , Babylonians and later the Phoenicians to their wealth. They were able to maintain their technical lead in the textile industry in Asia Minor, Persia and Arabia into the 13th century.

The Greeks also knew weaving. For Homer , weaving, spinning, and making clothes appear to have been the main occupations of women. According to other traditions, image weaving competed seriously with painting in the artistic field. Vase pictures from the black-figure period also show the use of the weight loom here .

Fabrics made from materials other than wool are known from the Roman Empire: Egyptian and Spanish linen and Chinese silk .

The Teutons used both wool and linen yarn. They wove intricate patterns , as evidenced by the famous Thorsberg coat .

In the early Middle Ages and in the Romanesque art period, oriental weaving dominated the world market. Sassanid , Saracen and Byzantine silk and wool fabrics were decorated and worked with rich ornaments. They were used to make pompous robes for emperors, princes, knights and the clergy. Silk also came to Europe via Byzantium.

Weaving began to flourish as an industry in Europe too. In Augsburg , there was middle of the 15th century, a weaver's guild with over 700 members. In many places, such as in the Mühlviertel , in the communities with a high proportion of weavers, often half of the population, their own weaver markets were held. One of the most important centers of traditional linen weaving in Württemberg was Laichingen , and Bielefeld was also known as the linen city .

In many places in Germany, so-called home weaving mills emerged over the centuries, which enabled an additional meager source of income in home work. The publishing system and factories were partners of the house weavers. They gave the orders and sold the yarn to the weavers and bought back the finished goods. With industrial weaving, home weaving disappeared.

Tools

Scheme drawing of a flat loom

For thousands of years, variants of the simple loom with a vertical chain (high loom) were used worldwide. Only with the invention of the loom with a horizontal chain (flat loom) in the high Middle Ages did a change in production technology take place. One of the forerunners of the mechanical loom was the so-called ribbon mill developed around 1600 and commonly used in ribbon weaving. They made it possible to weave twenty or more ribbons on one loom at the same time.

The loom was not developed significantly until the 18th century. At that time, John Kay invented the so-called rapid shooter to automatically move the shooter . The first mechanical loom was built in 1784 by clergyman Edmond Cartwright . Another revolutionary innovation was introduced by the Lyon silk weaver JM Jacquard . In his loom, built in 1805, the warp threads can be individually raised and lowered with the help of punch cards , which made it possible to weave patterned fabrics over a large area. This made an unlimited variety of patterns possible compared to the limited weave patterns in shaft weaving.

The mechanical looms were powered by transmissions by steam engines and sometimes also by water wheels. The first electric drive for a mechanical loom was presented by W. von Siemens at the Berlin trade fair in 1879 .

Cleaning iron.

Small tools such as cleaning needles, cleaning scissors and cleaning irons are used to repair - the so-called cleaning - of occasional weaving defects. Of these, the cleaning iron, standard size 13 cm, with its sharp cutting edge is particularly suitable for clipping thin threads and with the other side for pushing knots woven into the back of the fabric.

Weaving today

In the 21st century, hand weaving is mostly practiced as a handicraft , but is also used in occupational therapy , both on table looms and looms.

Museums, education and culture

Almost every textile museum shows one or more looms. There are also old looms in many local museums , industrial museums and educational institutions. Some museums specialize in certain web products. The Mindelheim Textile Museum is showing one of the largest publicly accessible collections of parament and other church textiles; the House of Silk Culture in Krefeld presents the topic of silk weaving .

Reactivated Großenhainer loom (built in 1939) in the former Müller cloth factory (LVR-Industriemuseum Euskirchen)
  • In the State Textile and Industry Museum Augsburg (tim), visitors experience fully functional weaving machines. Historical models (from the 1880s) produce alongside modern high-tech machines from today.
  • In the local history museum Greiz (Thuringia) there is a 'textile show workshop' in which the history of worsted yarn weaving in Greiz and the surrounding area is documented and demonstrated on machines.
  • In Haslach an der Mühl in the Mühlviertel (Upper Austria) there is a weaving museum, a textile school and the cultural association Textile Kultur Haslach, which holds a textile symposium and weaving courses every year.
  • the mesh museum presents the history of the mesh industry in the Albstadt area (about halfway between Stuttgart and Lake Constance) from 1750 to the present day. It is located in a former building of the Mayer & Cie textile machine factory, which is an industrial monument .
  • In the German Damask and Terrycloth Museum in Großschönau , the tradition and history of damask and terry cloth weaving in Lusatia is documented on machines and devices.
  • In the Brandenburg Textile Museum Forst (Lausitz), cloth production is shown in the building of a former textile factory, and cloth production can be experienced live in a demonstration workshop on functioning historical machines.
  • The Saxon Industrial Museum in Chemnitz shows in Crimmitschau in the former Pfau cloth weaving mill the path from the washed raw wool to the finished cloth on original machines. In Chemnitz, the museum also shows textile machines and a steam engine that still works with steam.

See also

Web links

Commons : Weaving  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Olga Soffer: Recovering perishable technologies through use wear on tools - Preliminary evidence for Upper Paleolithic weaving and net making . In: Current Anthropology . Volume 45, No. 3, June 2004, pp. 407-413.
  2. ↑ Bruce Bower: Stone Age twining unraveled - New finds suggest that people used plant fibers for sewing and other purposes in western Asia by 32,000 years ago. In: Science . Volume 11, September 2009.
  3. ↑ www.thueringen-tourismus.de
  4. ^ Albstadt - Maschenmuseum
  5. ^ German Damask and Terrycloth Museum Großschönau
  6. ^ Show workshop Brandenburg Textile Museum Forst
  7. ↑ Saxon Industrial Museum Chemnitz

swell

  • Olga Soffer: Palaeolithic perishables made permanent. Antiquity 74,2000,812-821