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I3ftljgs!)ive ©apcstrg. 



By Rev. Charles Kerry. 



INTRODUCTION. 



OST people profess to admire tapestry, and not a few 

 believe it to have been wrought in some way or other 

 by the needle, attributing its production to the ladies 

 of olden time during the weary hours of their mono- 

 tonous existence. Tapestry, however, is the triumphant offspring 

 of the weaver's loom. >It is purely an adaptation of a woof of 

 different coloured materials, silk or wool, to a particular design 

 set out on the strings of the warp. The best description I have 

 yet discovered of the tapestry loom, and the method of working 

 it, is in a little handbook by Alfred de Champeaux, published for 

 the committee of Council on Education.* 



" Tapestry, like all other woven fabrics, is composed of a warp 

 and a woof, but the woof alone appears on both the right and 

 wrong side, because it must entirely cover the warp. In the high 

 warp looms this warp is arranged on a vertical plane, and rolled 

 round the cylinders [one at the top and the other at the bottom 

 of the upright frame, and about five or six feet apart]. It is 

 composed of worsted, cotton, or even silk threads of four or five 

 yarns twisted together, and it must be perfectly smooth. [Each 

 thread passes through a gauge of woven wire immediately it leaves 

 the top cyclinder, to keep the series equi-distant.] When stretched 

 upon the rollers, the workman divides it into two leaves [or 

 planes] , which are kept apart by a thread passed alternately 



* The Editor is responsible for the bracketed portions. 



