836 



WEAVING. 



of lead wire is hung. Through this eye the yarn 

 is taken ; and there is either one, two, three, or four 

 threads, according to the kind of work intended 

 to be made, taken through each. The number of 

 mails will therefore vary according to the breadth 

 and fineness of the shawl ; but whatever is the 

 number, '2, 3, 4, or 5000, there must be a cord for 

 iMi-h mail. Above the mails the cords pass through 

 the holy board. Its use is to keep the yarn, though 

 drawn in the sloping direction of the pulley-box, in 

 a perpendicular line, the holes are also bored in diago- 

 nal lines to prevent the yarn from standing in stripes. 

 The board is then spaced otf, and the cords divided 

 into parts, and one neck cord from each part is 

 taken and tied to one tail cord. The number of 

 simple cords will then be reduced to the exact num- 

 ber of neck cords in the part, ten rows of which 

 with five in each row gives fifty, the number which 

 is called the tye. The harness then, after being 

 tied, presents the mails ranged in a horizontal line 

 for the reception of the yarn. The weaver draws 

 the yarn through the harness, and the heddles, and 

 then through the reed, and fastens it in front to the 

 cloth beam. The next operation is the mounting 

 of the heddles. For damasks, the work to which 

 we are chiefly referring, the heddles consist 

 usually of eight leaves, and the tweel a satin 

 one, that is to say, one out of the eight leaves 

 rises with an eighth part of the warp which is not 

 raised at the time by the harness, and at the same 

 time one sinks with an eighth part of the warp 

 which is raised by it. This is accomplished by 

 having a treadle to each leaf, and two cords at- 

 tached to it from different leaves, one cord raising 

 a leaf, the other sinking one alternately over the 

 tweel. The heddles are suspended from levers, 

 which are again counterbalanced by long levers 

 attached to them by cords. The short levers or 

 marches, as they are called, are interposed and 

 attached to the heddles below to keep them firm 

 and sink the shed. There is then one cord taken 

 from the short march, and attached to the treadle 

 for sinking the shed, and another from the long 

 march to the same treadle, to raise it. 



The next operation is to read on the flower in- 

 tended to be woven. The pattern is first drawn 

 on design paper, that is, a paper divided into a num- 

 ber of little squares of equal sizes, by lines cross- 

 ing each other at right angles, which are in turn 

 divided into larger squares called designs, each 

 containing 8, 10, or more of the smaller spaces. 

 Rows of the little squares may be considered as so 

 many lines, those running from the bottom to the 

 top of the pattern representing the warp, and those 

 that run from side to side the weft. The perpen- 

 dicular cords of the simple represent the whole 

 warp, and therefore their number, and the lines in 

 the breadth of the pattern, must be exactly the 

 same. The paper is then placed in a frame, with the 

 simple spread exactly to correspond with the 

 lines in the design. There is a thin slip of wood, 

 which presses the paper close to the simple, and 

 guides the eye over the line in reading. This slip 

 is placed in commencing to read at the foot of the 

 pattern just above the first line, and the reading on 

 of the pattern consists merely in taking up the 

 cords of the simple that correspond to the coloured 

 squares in the line across the paper, and inserting 

 a cross thread to separate them from the rest. He 

 then proceeds, running his eye from the right to 

 the left of the pattern ; saying mentally, take 9, 

 and pass 10; take 6, and pass 2; and take 2 de- 



signs and 3. These simples are then lashed to- 

 gether 3, or 4, in a take, or tak. This forms the 

 first line, then a second is taken in like manner, 

 till the whole is transferred to the simple. The 

 lashes are then strung alternately on two cords 

 called the gut-cords. 



When the weaver has got all this done, and 

 the lathe on, the loom is mounted, and if he 

 has got the yarn dressed, all is ready for work. He 

 then sets himself on the front of the loom, with 

 his feet immediately above the 8 treadles, and 

 commences weaving by treading the first treadle 

 with the right foot, which raises the shed, he 

 moves the lathe back with his left hand, and seizes 

 the picking pin to throw the shuttle with his 

 right. The boy then draws the first lash, and the 

 weaver throws the shuttle through the shed, and 

 goes over the treadles working four, six, or eight 

 shots according to the design, before the hoy 

 changes the lash. He has then wrought the 

 little squares of the first line in the pattern. 

 The boy then drops the cords, which are caused 

 to fall quickly by the piece of lead wire sus- 

 pended from each mail. He instantly raises the 

 next lash, and this he does so quickly, that the 

 weaver does not require to stop the process of 

 shuttling. The harness shed here raises the 

 warp in stripes; and if the weaver throw in the 

 shuttle without raising the heddle shed, the 

 shot would be floating from the one stripe to the 

 other, wholly unattached to the warp. The hed- 

 dle shed therefore, by raising one-eighth of the warp, 

 and at the same time by the sinking leaf de- 

 pressing one eighth part of that raised by the har- 

 ness in succession, thus binds the whole together, 

 but throwing the weft chiefly on the upper side of 

 the web. 



This is damask weaving ; the principle on 

 which table linen is wrought, and a great many 

 shawls, chiefly for the foreign market. When 

 the fabric is well made, it is both very durable 

 and very pretty. Both of the sides of this kind 

 of cloth may be said to be right. The figure is 

 on the one tide, and its counterpart on the other 

 Damask weaving, however, although forming the 

 basis of all harness work, is in itself very defec- 

 tive in expression. It cannot portray a rich in- 

 florescence. Whatever is the colour of the weft it is 

 all incorporated more or less in the ground ; it 

 therefore suffuses colour, and from its defective- 

 ness in shading and deepening, it can do little more 

 than exhibit a bare outline. 



This defect in shading is indeed inseparable from 

 the principle of damask weaving, where the weft, 

 whatever may be the number of colours used, is 

 all interwoven with the warp. But if instead of 

 this arrangement, we have two kinds of shots, one 

 exclusively used for the spotting on the pattern, 

 and the other for the ground, which is merely for 

 the purpose of keeping the spotting shots in their 

 places, we have the principle of full harness weav- 

 ing, on which all rich and extensive patterns are 

 wrought, and this principle gives us inexhaustible 

 resources for pictorial effect. The ground in this 

 case, therefore, is a kind of texture or net work, 

 between the meshes of which the spotting shots 

 are thrown in, to form the pattern ; and in the in- 

 terstices between the pattern where they are not 

 needed for this purpose, they float on the surface 

 of the cloth, and are cut off after the piece 

 comes from the weaver. In weaving this sort 

 of work, the weaver commences by throwing in a 



