PATTERN WEAVERS

Skilled weavers employed in weaving new designs from " pattern warps."

General term for processes after winding concerned in preparing weaver's and knitter's warps. Methods of warping vary according to (1) the yarns employed (2) whether they are sized or not, and (3) at what state sizing takes place. There are at least seven methods of warp preparation, e.g., beam warping, direct warping, mill warping on vertical mills, section warping on horizontal mills and in cheeses on section blocks, Scotch dresser sizing, Scotch warp dressing, and Yorkshire warp dressing. Beam Warping is the system in general use for making grey cotton goods. The beam warper comprises a creel for the supply ends, which may be on double-flanged bobbins, cones or cheeses, and a beaming head which comprises mechanism for mounting and rotating a warper's beam and means for winding the yarn from the creel supply on to the beam under suitable tension. The number of ends and length of warp on a back or warper's beam is related to what is required in the weaver's beam. Assuming the weaver's beams were required to have 2928 ends, 24's warp, and 8 cuts of 96 yards each, the back beams for a set might have 2928: 6 = 488 ends, and 2 X 6 X 8 X 96 = 9216 yards. On the slasher sizing machine six back beams would be run together, thereby producing 12 weaver's beams each containing 2928 ends 768 yards long. Warp Beaming Speeds - With the old type of warp beaming machine taking supply from unrolling double-flanged bobbins, the warping speed would be about 70 yards per minute. In modern beam warpers taking supply overend from cones, the warping speed is up to 250 yards per minute. With beam barrels of 4¹/₂-in. dia., and up to 500 yards per minute with barrels of 10-in. dia. Warp and Weft Knitted Fabrics - Warp knitted fabrics in which extra yarn is introduced in the form of weft threads which are laid in between the warp threads and their needles for the purpose of adding extra weight and for patterning purposes. Warp Loom Tapes - Narrow knitted fabrics usually less than one inch wide used for trimming garments. They are knitted on circular latch needle machines, but the tapes are flat. Direct Warping - A method used in making warps for towels, fustians, and other fabrics in which the total number of ends can be accommodated in one creel, say not more than 1,000 ends. The threads are run from the creel direct to the weaver's beam on a machine similar to that used in section beam warping. Mill Warping - There are two distinctly different methods of mill warping. On the vertical mill, which may be anything up to 20 yards in circumference, the number of ends in the complete warp is obtained by repeating the runs the required number of times, e.g., with 200 bobbins in the creel, 4 runs would give a warp of 800 ends. The length of the warp is determined by the number of revolutions made by the mill for each run. The horizontal mill is much used in Yorkshire for making woollen and worsted warps It is used to a small extent for cotton warps and is largely used for making silk and rayon warps. The mill or swift is usually about 5 yards in circumference. Its distinctive feature is the making of warps in sections which are wound on the mill in overlapping manner. The creel capacity varies from 250 to 600 ends, and with 500 ends in the creel a warp of 5,000 ends would require ten sections. Section Warping for Coloured Goods - This is a system of making coloured striped warps from hank-dyed and bleached yarns. The bobbins are creeled to pattern, one or more complete patterns to each section. Each section is the full length of the warp and is run on a small section block keywayed to fit a key on the shaft of the subsequent beaming machine where the sections are placed side by side and run on the weaver's beam. Scotch Dresser Sizing - There are two systems of warp preparation known as Scotch dressing. 1. Dresser sizing used for sizing warps for linen damasks, etc. Back beams are first made and placed in two beam creels, one on each side of the headstock. The threads from several back beams are collected in one sheet of yarn, sized by passage through a size-box, brushed by a revolving brush, dried by hot air, and passed vertically upwards where both sheets of warp threads are united and pass on to the weaver's beam in a single sheet. Scotch Warp Dressing - The other method of Scotch dressing is used in the preparation of coloured striped warps, usually from warp-dyed and bleached yarn. It consists in splitting off from ball warps previously dyed or bleached and sized, the number of ends of each colour required in the finished warp. Each group is then wound on separate flanged warpers' beams. These beams are placed in a creel and the ends drawn through a reed according to pattern, and wound finally on to the weavers' beams. Yorkshire Warp Dressing - This is a system used mostly in the preparation of coloured striped warps. It is also invaluable in preparing warps dyed and sized in warp form to prevent shadiness in the cloth. Four warps with the same number of ends in each are dyed the same colour, and in sleying, one end from each warp is put in each dent of the reed. Any tendency to shadiness arising from irregularity in dyeing is thereby effectively eliminated. In striped work the required ends are split off if necessary from a larger ball warp, sleyed to pattern in the reed, and then run under controlled tension on to the weaver's beam. The dresser uses a brush as long as the width of the warp to brush out entangled places where the threads have adhered together with size. Yorkshire dressing provides perfect warps with every thread in its proper place on the weaver's beam, no crossed or missing threads, and a minimum of knots.