Tapestry.—What are generally known in trade as tapestries, are figured fabrics for curtains, hangings, &c., not damask, which is distinct, being woven with only one warp and weft. Real tapestry is a hand-made fabric of very ancient origin, being in use since the days of the ancient Egyptians, who wove or worked it in a manner very similar to that employed at the present time. It does not belong to ‘jacquard weaving,’ but being the first in point of the excellence of its patterns amongst figured fabrics, a short description of it may not be out of place. Henry VIII. tried to establish tapestry weaving in this country, but failed, but James I. had a flourishing factory at Mortlake. Tapestry weaving appears to have been introduced into France about the ninth century. The Flemish were celebrated for it from the twelfth century. Arras work surpassed all the others, and tapestry was commonly known as arras work. The sixteenth century gave a new impulse to the trade in France. Francis I. founded the manufactory of Fontainebleau, and Henry IV. re-established tapestry making in Paris in the years 1595 to 1606. About the year 1666 Louis XIV. bought the Gobelins Works (which take their name from the original owners, a rich family of wool dyers), and established the Royal Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory, which is now one of the sights of Paris.

There were two methods of working tapestries—one known as ‘basse lisse,’ or low warp, the threads of warp being placed in a horizontal position in the loom; the other was called ‘haute lisse,’ or high warp, as the threads of warp were placed in an upright or vertical position. It is the latter method of working that is now adopted.

The loom consists of an upright frame of wood of a size to suit the cloth to be made. There is a strong roller at the top, which acts as a warp beam, and another at the bottom for the cloth beam. Both these rollers have ratchet wheels on one end, and are held with pawls or catches so as to allow the warp to be wound off and the cloth to be wound up when required, and then hold the stretch of warp steady to be woven. The warp is coarse, but a clean, regular thread of twist, cotton, or linen, about 12 to 18 threads per inch (more or less, as desired,) and of such a thickness that the spaces between the threads are somewhat less than the diameter of the threads. The weft is usually of fine wool but a fairly thick thread, say 4’s or 6’s worsted. This is generally used alone, of whatever shade of colour is required, and there is no end to the shades used; but in some places, to give brilliancy and richness of effect, silk is used along with the wool, and sometimes tinsel or gold cord. These are put in separate threads along with the woollen or worsted weft. The silk is much finer than the worsted, say about equal to 12’s or 16’s cotton, and, of course, can be regulated to give the effect required. The gold is sufficient to give sparkle to the portion it is employed in.

After leaving the warp beam the warp is divided by two thick glass lease rods. Then every alternate thread, those to the front of the frame, is drawn through a doup of a half-leaf of heddles which is fixed in a horizontal position above the weaver’s head. This enables a plain shed to be formed, as the thick lease rod divides the threads and forms one shed. Then, when the weaver, sitting at the back of the loom, draws back the half-leaf of heddles, all the front threads or any portion of them can be drawn back past the back set, and form a cross shed. As the doups of the heddles are long and strong, the weaver can take any number of them he requires and draw the front warp back; then putting his fingers into the shed thus formed, clear it down to the fell of the cloth and insert his bobbin.

The pattern is painted on design paper, shaded in the way it is to appear on the cloth, and the weaver must have a bobbin of weft to suit each tint or shade of colour on the design. The outline of the pattern is traced on the warp to guide the weaver, and the painted pattern is fastened up either before him or to one side of him, so as to be convenient to read the stitches off it. When ready for work he looks at the pattern and finds perhaps 20 stitches of blue; then he selects a bobbin of the correct shade and passes it through the open shed of the warp round 10 threads; then he draws the 10 doups of the heddles that are round the 10 threads intermediate with and in front of these, pulling them back through the others and forming a cross shed. The same bobbin is now passed through this shed, and the weft pressed down with a pin or comb, both of which articles the weaver uses for straightening and beating up the weft. This covers 20 threads of warp with blue weft. The texture of the cloth is plain throughout, the weft being bent round the warp and pressed close together, forming a rib. Now, instead of completing this weft line all along the cloth, as is usual in coloured weaving, the weaver goes on working with the bobbin he has taken up, following the colouring on the pattern, and may change his bobbin when required for a new shade or colour, and go on working this portion for some distance upwards, and then begin an adjoining portion and work it up in the same way. This will come all right when the outlines of the portion he is working run obliquely; but if they should run upright for any distance in the same direction as the warp, it is plain there would be two selvages coming together without any connection between these portions of the cloth, as shown in Fig. 168. When the pattern runs in a diagonal direction, the weft threads passing across from one warp thread to the next one make a sufficient binding or connecting link between the two colours, as may be seen at the upper portion of this figure, which would be quite sufficiently connected when it is considered that the weft threads are pressed so closely together as to entirely cover the warp. To remedy the objection of a slit or division between the two portions of a pattern in the case of a vertical line, it is customary to tack the bobbin of one colour of weft round the first warp thread of the adjoining colour, at intervals of, say 3/16 in. This produces a toothed appearance, but is not very remarkable. The only other remedy would be to link the two wefts on each other occasionally. In many of the old tapestries it may be seen that this was neglected, even when the distance was as much as 3 in. or 4 in. Sometimes they were stitched afterwards in these places with a needle and thread. When there are many long straight lines running in one direction, as in architectural subjects, it is best to work the pattern so that these will run in the direction of the weft, to avoid any joining being required. Patterns can be wrought sideways or upright on the cloth as desired to suit the size, subject, &c.

As the weaver sits at the back of his frame or loom when working, he has to come round occasionally to examine the face of his work. Sometimes he keeps a looking-glass in front to show him how he is getting on. He has also a rough pattern on the back of the cloth similar to that on the front, as the nature of the weave must give him the same on both sides were it not for the loose ends at each change of bobbin, which have to be tacked up at the back. Tapestry weaving is a very tedious process of working, but in skilful hands very beautiful, and artistic results can be produced.

Figured Pile Fabrics.—When we come to pile work we have a great scope for the ornamentation of fabrics, but the nature of the work is such that it is only suited to heavy or moderately heavy cloth, and a large number of either threads or picks per inch are required.

Forming stripes of plain or figured pile alternately with twilled or figured stripes can easily be accomplished with either a weft or warp pile, but when we come to figure indiscriminately over the cloth there is more trouble. For a length of time there was a difficulty in cutting weft-pile figured fabrics, as the knife or cutter would not always enter the proper ‘race’ round the edges of the figure, and the floats were cut irregularly. This has now been overcome by arranging the design to suit. Fig. 169 is a common velveteen designed for a weft pile figure. Only a portion of the pattern is given, but enough to show the method of arranging the design. It will be seen that the figuring is produced by flushing the weft on one side of the cloth, and for the ground it passes to the other side. The edges of the pattern are moved across the design paper in steps of two, and no flush or float is less than over four threads. In addition to this the figure should be turned in the centre on an odd number of ends, which in cutting keeps the race end on the inside of the step into which the knife enters. The knife is run up on all the odd numbers of ends moving across in steps of two, and, leaving no flushes of less than four, gives it a better chance of entering in the proper place along the edges of the pattern.

Fig. 170 is another make of velvet for a heavier fabric, with 60 threads of warp per inch, and from 350 to 400 picks. It makes a good firm cloth, suitable for curtains or furniture coverings. The principle of designing is the same as for Fig. 169. Both these patterns are portions of a diamond figure.

When the figure is produced with a warp pile, it is only necessary to raise the proper warp threads with the jacquard for the insertion of each wire, but the difficulty to contend with is that there will be an irregular take-up of the warp pile threads, and this can only be remedied by having a number of small warp beams. In some cases a separate spool for each warp thread may be required, which, of course, for a fine velvet means a very intricate arrangement, though it suits very well for pile carpets. Different heights of pile can be formed through a pattern in this way—say, a short pile to be left looped, and a longer pile to be cut, which, in suitable colours of pile and ground, forms a very beautiful though costly fabric.

Another method of warp pile weaving, more easily accomplished, is that known as terry, or Turkish towel weaving. It is largely used for quilts, toilet covers, towels, &c., and any bold figure can be woven on it with almost as much ease as on ordinary damask work.

There are two methods of forming figures on the cloth in this style of weaving, one by having two colours of pile warp and changing them from one side to the other to form the figure or ground—that is, supposing the one pile warp to be red and the other white—pile would be thrown up on both sides of the cloth at the same time; on one side the figure would be formed by the red pile and the ground by the white pile, and the other side would be the reverse of this. Fig. 171 is a portion of a pattern of this style. The black squares represent, say, the red warp-forming loops on the face of the cloth, and the shaded squares the same for the white warp. The crosses are the ground or binding threads; and the dots represent the pile threads of the colours they are on, raised to bind with the weft, when these threads are forming pile on the underside of the cloth.

The other method is to have only one colour of pile warp—in fact, to have only one pile warp, it might be said, instead of two, as in the previous case. The cloth consists of a pile figure and a plain or solid ground on one side, and the reverse of this on the other side. The pile and ground may be of the same colour, or of different tints if desired—say a rich cream ground and a white pile. This style of working is very suitable for quiltings, toilet covers, &c. Fig. 172 is a portion of a pattern for weaving in this way. The black squares represent the pile-warp raised to form loops, and the round dots are also pile-warp raised, but only for binding when the loops are being formed at the other side of the cloth. The shaded squares show the ground warp raised to form the body texture. This cloth has about 60 threads of warp per inch, and the same or a little more weft.

Figs. 173 and 174 are two examples of six-shot pile cloth for quilts; it is made with 50 to 60 threads of warp per inch, and double that quantity of weft. The same method of marking the design paper is used as that for 172 pattern. It will be seen that in Fig. 173 the loops or flushes of pile are over five and under one, and in Fig. 174 they are over two, under one, over one, and under one, thus making a fast pile fabric, whereas the floats of five in Fig. 173 would be rather loose unless the cloth is over-wefted. Both these piles may be used in the one cloth, one for the face and the other for the back, as is given in the figures; the light portion of Fig. 173 being of the same texture as the dark portion of Fig. 174. One pattern may be taken as the face of the cloth and the other as the back. Of course they may also be used separately if desired. Any full-harness mounting that will suit the pattern will answer for these fabrics, the loops being thrown up in the usual way, by leaving a few shots standing out from the fell and then knocking all up, drawing forward the pile warp, which is slackened at this beat, but sliding on the ground warp, which is held firm.

Another method of forming figure pile is to weave a plain pile, and when cut press or stamp a pattern on it with heated blocks cut to the pattern; the standing pile is then shorn off, and afterwards that which was pressed down is brushed up again, forming a full-pile figure on a shorn-pile ground.