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Abaca: a ‘hard’ fibre obtained from the leaf sheaths of the wild banana plant.
Acanthus: foliage design based on the Mediterranean plant Acanthus spinosus, widely used in European arts.
Alpaca: a warm fine woolen cloth, made from the hair of the alpaca goat. The fiber is small but strong, elastic, lustrous and silky. The alpaca goat is common to Chile and Peru.
Angora: a light, silky dress goods made from the hair of the angora goat of Turkey.
Aniline dyes: Aniline is a chemical base which yields many colors, though it is initself a colorless, oily, aromatic liquid. Now obtained from coal-tar, it was originally made by distilling indigo with caustic potash. The development of aniline dyes was the high-point of nineteenth century dye research.
Applique: the application - usually by stitching - of fabrics cut to certain shapes, or of embroidered motifs, to the surface of a ground material to form a design.
Arabesque: curving scrolls that cross and interlace ornamented with the forms of leaves and flowers.
Atma stitch or Oriental stitch: a type of flat stitch, this stitch is actually a combination of two stitches: single-faced satin stitch and Bukharan-couching. A single-faced satin stitch is used to cover the whole motif area, using unspun silk. Then a plied silk thread is laid over the first layer of embroidered unspun silk threads at a ninety-degree angle. This second layer of plied silk is secured by bringing the same plied silk thread up from below.
Bark-cloth: smooth fabric made from a fibrous plant substance, usually inner bark or bast, which is softened, flattened and felted by beating and soaking.
Basket Weave: a variant of the plain weave formed by treating two or more warp yarns and/or two or more filling yarns as one unit in the weaving process. The yarns are laid flat and maintain a parallel relationship. Examples include monk cloth or oxford cloth.
Bast fibre: strong, soft, woody fibres such as flax, jute, hemp and ramie which come from the inner bark of plants
Batik: a method - originating in Java - of resist dyeing which employs wax as the resist. The pattern is covered with wax and the fabric is then dyed, producing a white design on a dyed ground. The waxed patterns will not take the dye, and the wax is removed after dyeing. The process is repeatedto obtain multicolored designs. The effect is sometimes imitated in machine prints.
Bed-hangings: these consisted of tester, celour, curtain and bed-coverings in the Middle Ages. In the 16th century, when the bed took the form of wainscot. Head and tester, supported by two posts, the hangings were limited to curtains and valances. Later, the beds were entirely covered and draped in textiles, until in the Georgian period they became again less pronounced.
Berlin wool work: a type of needlework invented in Berlin, Germany, early in the 19th century, the design being blocked and colored on canvas, and done by the crossstitch. The best Berlin-work was for furniture coverings in flower and conventionalized designs. The so-called zephyr wool, a fine dyed worsted, gave the best results, but silk, chenille and beads were also used. This work was very popular here, also in England, following the decline of the sampler in the Victorian period.
Binding point: the place at which a warp thread is held in place by a weft thread, or a weft thread by a warp thread.
Blackwork: the name given to the English technique of thread-counted needlework on linen with black silk.
Bleaching: this is the process of whitening textile fibers and fabrics by exposure to the sun and weather, as it was practised before the Christian era, or by treatment with chemicals. In the 18th century a bleaching solution of potash and lye was used and in 1785 the powerful bleaching quality of chlorine was discovered, since which time various other bleaching processes have been discovered.
Block printing: a method of patterning the surface of a fabric with dye transferred through the pressure from a craved wooden block.
Bobbin lace: the name is derived from the bone bobbin used, in distinction from the needlepoint lace. This form of lace-making was introduced into England in the last half of the 16th century and in the time of Queen Anne had become a prominent industry. It was first made in this country at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in the 18th century by workmen from England. See LACE.
Boteh: curvilinear shape with curled top derived from Persian flower spray pattern and perfected during the Mughal period in India. Popularity associated with shawls.
Brocade: fabric patterning with supplementary weft while the piece is being woven. Term used generally to mean a richly-patterned textile, often with gold or silver yarns.
Brocading weft: an extra weft, in addition to the main weft, that is not woven selvedge to selvedge but is used only where needed by the pattern.
Brocatelle: A lampas-woven fabric with silk warps that is characterized by a marked relief of the warp-faced weave. This results from the use of coarse linen ground weft and silk pattern wefts, and from the appropriate tensions between the warps and wefts.
Bukharan stitch: a type of self-couching stitch in which the couching thread secures down the previously laid stitch with small slanting stitches on the journey back. Both the couching thread and couched thread are the same. In appearance, the couching stitch is short on the front face and long on the back face of the fabric.
Burn test: used (under strict conditions and controls) for identifying fibres. Different fibres react in different and distinct ways when burnt. Cotton burns steadily and smells like burning leaves. The ash left is easily crumbled. Linen takes longer to ignite than cotton and the fabric closest to the ash is very brittle. Can be easily distinguished by blowing as you would a candle. Silk burns readily and smells like burning hair. Not as easily extinguished. Wool is harder to ignite than silk. It produces a steady flame but is more difficult to keep alight. Smells like burning hair. Of the man-made fibres acetate (from cellulose) burns readily with a flickering flame than cannot easily be extinguished. The burning cellulose drips and leaves a hard ash. Smells like burning wood chips. Acrylic (from natural gas and petroleum) burns readily and leaves a hard ash. It smells acrid. Nylon (from petroleum) melts then burns rapidly. Smells like burning plastic. Polyester (from coal, air and petroleum products) melts and burns at the same time. The melting, burning ash bonds quickly to any surface. Smells sweet and has a black smoke. Ash is hard. Rayon (from cellulose) burns rapidly and leaves only slight ash. Smells of burning leaves.
Buttonhole stitch: a simple looping stitch which is employed in needlework. It is also the foundation stitch of all needle lace.
Caftan: A full-length loose outer robe worn in various Islamic countries. The Turkish version fastens in front and has short or long sleeves, the latter sometimes detachable.
Calico: the name derives from Calicut, a port on the west coast of India, south of Madras, where textiles were collected for shipment by the East India Company. The name was applied to Indian cotton cloth, whther coarse or fine, woven with colored stripes or checks, painted or printed. In modern usage, calico generally refers to cottons printed with small-scale patterns, especially dress goods.
Canvaswork: embroidery worked on evenweave canvas fabric by counting threads.
Ceplokan: category of geometric batik patterns based on repetitions of squares, rectangles, ovals and stars.
Cepuk: ritual weft-ikat cloth from Bali, Indonesia, or neighbouring Nusa Penida
Chain stitch: pne of the looped stitches worked with either a needle or a hook. If worked with a needle, the thread is brought up at the beginning of the row. The needle is then inserted into the same hole where the thread first emerged, forming a loop, and is brought up through the fabric again a short distance beyond. It is then brought out through and over the loop of working thread. If the stitch is done with a hook, the thread is hooked from above and pulled through to create a loop. This loop is then secured with another loop pulled through the same way.
Challis: a lightweight fabric having a soft plain weave with a brushed surface. Often printed with a floral print and usually made of cotton, wool or rayon.
Chine: a technique of printing or resist-dyeing warp threads prior to weaving. When warps are colored by printing, they are loosely woven with temporary wefts. After printing, the temporary wefts are removed, leaving a printed warp that is then rewoven into its final form.
Cinde: the name by which patola silk double-ikat cloth is known in Java and Sumatra.
Chantilly lace: French elaborate floral lace on hexagonal mesh ground outlined in heavy silk thread.
Chambray: the fabric originated in the Northern French town of Cambrai near the Belgian border. A light, good quality cotton commonly made in stripes and checks. Usually constructed with a slightly coarser corded or combed cotton yarn in the weft than in the warp. It is woven in a plain weave and given a fairly hard finish.
Chenille fabric: a fabric woven with chenille yarns which have a pile effect similar to velvet, and when woven through various warps can create a pile-like velvet, or, if woven on a jacquard loom, can look similar to a cut velvet
Chevron: Broken twill or herringbone weave giving a chevron effect, creating a design of wide "Vs " across the width of the fabric.
Chintz: a mordant-painted or block-printed cotton textile, sometimes glazed, made primarily in India, England and Holland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Complementary wefts: more than one set of wefts that equally share in the formation of the ground weave. Complementary wefts exchange place and function within a weave to allow for color and pattern changes.
Copper plate printing: a method of patterning the surface of the fabric with dye transferred through the pressure of a press on an engraving copper plate.
Cotton: vegetable fibre obtained from the floss of the seed heads of the cotton plant. The chemical composition is almost 100% cellulose and the natural colour is cream. Cotton makes a strong fabric which is cool to wear.
Couching or couched stitches: a needlework technique in which threads are laid over a pattern line or area and held in place by short stitches made through a foundation fabric. May be executed with a variety of stitches and patterns.
Coverlet: textile covering of a bed.
Crepe: crinkly fabric of tightly-spun yarn.
Crewel: chain stitch embroidery made with a fine, loosely twisted, two-ply worsted yarn on a plain weave fabric. Done by hand, for the most part, in the Kashmir Province of India and in England.
Crossed stitches: a unit stitch composed of two flat stitches crossing the same small area at opposite or oblique angles. Each flat stitch may be crossed before the next is is worked, or a whole row of parallel slanting stitches may be worked first, and the crossing stitches worked in a second ‘journey’. Crossed stitches may be counted or not. Fishbone, herringbone, and Rhodian cross are a few examples of this category.
Cutwork: originally an APPLIQUE of cut-out shapes, the name was transferred to embroidery in which parts of the ground were cut away. From the mid-sixteenth century it became the generic name for all forms of needle lace based on a woven ground.
Damask: a self-patterned weave of one warp and one weft set in which the pattern is produced by the juxtaposition of the warp and weft faces of the same cloth. Originally a firm Jacquard-patterned fabric made in China and introduced to the West by Marco Polo in the 13th century. The name is from Damascus, the centre of the fabric trade between East and West.
Dandong: Iban man’s shoulder cloth.
Dival embroidery: an embroidery style sometimes referred to as maras isi, from the town of Maras in southeastern Turkey. A paper cutout design is pasted over the ground fabric using special glue. The embroidery is then worked by holding a group of gold metallic-wrapped threads and moving them from side to side on top of the fabric over the paper cutout design. During this process, on each side, the metal threads are then secured to the ground fabric with a separate couching thread.
Double-cloth: a weave with two warp sets, each interlacing with its own weft set or sets, put on a loom so that two textiles are woven - in layers - simultaneously. These cloths can be completely separate from one another, joined by stitching ties, joined at the selvedges, or joined by patterning achieved by exchanging the position of each set of warps on the loom while weaving.
Double-ikat: Ikat resist-dyeing process which is applied separately to both the weft and warp threads. These are woven in a balanced plainweave so that the resulting fabric is patterned in designs that are a compound of the differently patterned warp and weft threads.
Double running stitch: a type of flat stitch, this stitch consists of a simple running stitch worked in two journeys over the same line. This stitch, which appears the same on both sides, is known by several names: Holbein stitch, line, square, stroke, two-sided lin, two-sided stroke, and Romanian stitch.
Drawn work: a needlework technique in which counted warp and weft threads are removed from the foundation fabric and the remaining threads are worked with decorative stitches. Also called punto tirato.
Embroidering: embellishing a foundation fabric with decorative stitches by using needle and thread.
Endek: weft-ikat cloth of silk or artificial fiber woven in Bali, Indonesia.
Eyelet stitch: a type of flat stitch, this stitch consists of a series of back stitches worked in pairs, disposed from the same center.
Felt, felting: a process of producing a firm fabric from the matting and adherence of a mass of fibres lying indiscriminately in all directions by mechanical processes such as pressure, moisture, pounding.
Feng-huan: the mythical Chinese phoenix bird, now a textile motif.
Fibre: any tough substance, natural or man-made, composed of thread-like tissue capable of being made into yarn.
Fishbone stitch: a type of crossed stitch, generally worked as a filling stitch. A series of slanted crossed stitches, with satin stitches taken alternatively from one side to the other and crossing at the center of the work, near the base of each individual stitch.
Flannel: woven woollen fabric.
Flat stitches: stitches formed by working the needle alternately in and out of a fabric and thus laying the sewing element flat and straight on first one face and then, depending on the stitch, making a return journey along the same line.
Float: a warp or weft passing unbound over two or more elements of the opposite set.
Floss silk: raw and untwisted silk thread made from the soft external covering of the silkworm’s cocoon. As it is untwisted the threads lie closely and evenly together, making it suitable for long-and-short stitch where the shades must blend in evenly.
Frill: an ornamental edging of woven material, of which one edge is gathered and the other let loose, giving a wavy appearance.
Fringe: an ornamental border or twisted threads, usually the unwoven warp ends remaining at each length of fabric when the textile is removed from the loom and the warp is severed.
Garis miring: category of diagonally slanted batik designs from central Java.
Gauze: a weave in which the binding is achieved by the displacement of warp ends. The resulting fabric is generally (but not always) an open weave.
Gigi barong: pattern of white triangles along the borders of Balinese cepuk cloth.
Glazed: a finishing process that gives a smooth and glossy appearance to a woven cloth through the application of heat, pressure, chemical action, or a glazing medium.
Gringsing: fish-scale pattern. One of the oldest motifs in Javanese batik.
Ground weave: the basic interlacing system of warp and weft sets, which forms the structure or foundation of the finished textile.
Heddle: essential part of the loom used to create the shed openings through which the weft threads are passed.
Hem: to turn in and sew down the edge of a fabric.
Herringbone stitch: a type of crossed stitch in a row with both arms occurring equal length, evenly spaced. The crossed points of the stitches touch each other at top and bottom. It produces horizontal parallel lines of single straight stitches in alternating alignment on the reverse.
Hinggi: Man’s warp-ikat mantle from Sumba.
Hooked Rugs: the best of the old hooked rugs exhibit a fine and patient workmanship, and they are of a time when the making of objects for use was also a means of amusement. The patterns of these older rugs express the designer's own personal interest, whether it was in flowers or animals or other simple subjects. The typical foundation of hooked rugs is burlap or gunny cloth, but they are occasionally found made on a linen cloth foundation. The time of the earliest use of the hooked rug has not been definitely established, but it is believed to have been before the end of the 18th century. Before the middle of the 19th century it had become very popular. The work was attached to a wooden frame which held it tight and smooth while the surface was being covered with the design. Woolen or cotton rags cut in strips and woolen yarn were the materials used. In some rugs the loop top was sheared off, making the surface resemble an Oriental rug.
Ikat: the resist-dyeing process in which designs are reserved in the warp or weft yarns by tying off small bundles of threads with fiber resists to prevent the penetration of dye.
Indigo: the blue-black dye derived from plants of the Indigofera and Marsdenia species, by producing an active precipitate from the reaction of the leaves with an alkaline solution.
Inlaid: carefully cut segments of fabric are set into identically-shaped openings cut out of the ground fabric to form a design. Generally secured by stitching, the inlaid segments may also be secured to a lining fabric by means of adhesives.
Isen: a category of batik background patterns.
Jacquard: an intricate method of weaving invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in the years 1801-4. A head motion at the top of the loom holds and operates a set of punched paper cards, each with a different motif. The punched perforations control the action of one warp end for the passage of one pick. These looms allow for large, complicated designs such as a floral or large geometric. Damasks, brocades, brocatelles and tapestries are all examples of woven jacquards.
Jelamprang: batik and ikat design found all over Indonesia, derived from the eight-petalled lotus patola motif.
Jok: a Lao term for supplementary weft-patterning where the wefts threads of the design are inserted by hand.
Kain: (Indonesia) cloth, generally rectangular, to be wrapped around the body. Often combined with a descriptive word - for example, kain songket, meaning cloth of songket weave.
Kain Limar: Javanese shoulder cloth of weft-ikat woven in Sumatra with a patola-derived pattern.
Kain Panjang: (Indonesia) ‘long cloth’ worn as a waistcloth by both sexes.
Kalamkari: literally "pen-work" or "brush-work", the painted and dyed cotton cloths of India. The process is complex, involving the painting of the mordants and then dyeing in an alizarin-based dye bath to obtain a range of reds, violets, browns and black. Where blue or dark green is required, the cloth is protected by coating it with wax to act as a resist, before a separate dyeing in indigo. Yellows and light greens are painted by hand with less fast local vegetable dyes; dark greens are achieved by over painting yellow on indigo, orange by over-painting yellow on pale red. The kalamkari processes are aided by careful preparation of the cotton cloth to produce a smooth, firm surface, and by the use of fruits and seeds of other plants as astringents in which the cloth is steeped before painting.
Kantha: quilted cover from Bengal, India, and Bangladesh, originally made from layers (usually two) of discarded cloth and rags (often old cotton saris) and embroidered.
Kawung: (Indonesia) category of batik patterns made up of groups of four ovals.
Kemben: (Indonesia) Javanese woman’s breastcloth.
Kemha: Turkish name for a fabric in silk lampas weave with satin weave ground and silk and gilt thread brocading wefts, bound in twill weave.
Kepala: (Indonesia) the "head" of the sarong. A broad perpendicular band of different coloring and patterning to that of the badan, or body of the sarong.
Kesi or k’ossu: Chinese terms for silk slit tapestry weave
Kimkhab: heavy Indian silk fabric brocaded in silk and/or gold with colored silk accents.
Knotted stitches: a looped structure in which the loop (s) are secured by a flat stitch to form a knot. Peking knot and pearl stitch are examples of knotted stitches.
K’ossu or kesi: Chinese terms for silk slit tapestry weave.
Lacis: an ancient needlework technique of embroidering on a ground of knotted netting, or filet. Often executed in cloth or darning stitches, it produces a solid pattern on an open background.
Laid work: a needlework technique for filling large areas with closely laid long stitches attached to the ground fabric only at the ends of the area to be filled. These laid stitches are usually held in place within their span by couching stitches.
Lampas: a figured textile whose pattern is created by a supplementary pattern or brocading weft, held in place by a binding warp, resting upon the ground weave produced by a main warp and ground weft.
Lau: (Indonesia) woman’s tubular skirtcloth from Sumba. Lau hada are decorated with shells and beadwork - lau pahudu with supplementary warp borders.
Linen: made from the fibres of the woody stem of the flax plant. These fibres are stronger and more lustrous than those of cotton. Linen fabrics are very cool and absorbent but wrinkle very easily unless blended with other fibres. Linen is one of the oldest textile fibres.
Lokcan: (Indonesia) batik of Chinese-inspired patterning worked in Shantung silk in the Juana area area of northern Java.
Looped stitch: stitch in which the element is made to deviate from a direct line and held out of line by the next stitch; the process can be described as looping the thread under the needle. Chain, buttonhole, feather, and cable stitch are a few of the stitches in this category.
Luka Semba: (Indonesia) warp-ikat selendang , patterned with patola-derived motifs worn by a clan leader in the Lio district of Flores.
Macrame: a needlework technique of building up a fabric from the knotting and plaiting of rows of vertical threads.
Ma’a: (Indonesia) painted and block-printed cotton ritual textile of the Toraja, south Sulawesi.
Mandala: a visual representation of the universe, portraying Buddhist deities or their symbols in hierarchial order, which is made and used in acts of Buddhist worship.
Manta: Spanish term used in Latin America after the Conquest to describe Indian mantles and webs of cloth.
Metal thread: may be silvered or gold. May be of metal beaten into foil and cut into strips, metal wire, or foil adhered tp paper or an animal substrate.
Mihrab: arched niche in a mosque marking the direction of Mecca.
Minakari: literally "enameled work", the name given to a style of brocade weaving in Rajasthan and central India, where the pattern is brocaded in colored silks on a field filled with weft of silver or silver-gilt thread. Minakari is used chiefly for the borders and end-borders of garment cloths such as saris and orhnis.
Mirror-work: rounds cut from thin mirror glass, often lead-backed, or from mica, and sewn on to the base fabric with a framework of stitches.
Moire: term used to describe textiles to which rippled or watered effect is produced by pressing certain warp rib fabrics in such a way as to flatten parts of the ribs and leave the rest in relief, so that the flattened and unflattened parts reflect the light differently.
Mordant: chemical that fixes the dye on fabric by combining with the dyestuff to form an insoluble compound.
Musabak stitch: a type of composite stitch utilizing single faggot and reversed faggot stitches. The faggot stitch is a counted stitch worked on the diagonal. It is made up of a series of straight flat stitches on the surface, producing a square; generally worked in rows as a filling or in pulled thread work. It produces parallel diagonal rows of straight stitches on the reverse.
Naga: (Indonesia) Chinese-inspired dragon or snake motif.
Natural dyes: dyestuffs obtained from natural pant, animal or mineral substances.
Needlework: general term that encompasses many techniques; employing a needle to embellish a foundation fabric with thread, such as appliqué, laid work, pulled thread, and cut and drawn work.
Openwork: an embroidery style identified by holes or spaces between elements of a fabric either as an integral part of the structure or as a result of accessory stitching. It is produced by a variety of textile-working techniques.
Pagisore: (Indonesia) ‘morning-evening’ batik cloth, slightly longer than the kain panjang. Each half is a different color and design.
Paisley: boteh pattern commonly used on European shawls of the nineteenth century imitating Kashmiri ones, many of which were made in Paisley.
Palampore: a mordant-painted and sometimes barik resist-dye Indian cotton fabric which usually features an elaborate flowering tree on a rocky mound. One genre of chintz.
Palmette: a formalized plant form - flower, leaf, or fruit - cut longitudinally to reveal inner seeds.
Panel: a section of textile or a separate length of fabric.
Parang: (Indonesia) diagonally slanted batik designs. Of the many parang variants the parang rusak (broken knife) is the most famous and most revered.
Passementerie: a term used for trimmings of all descriptions - gold and silver lace, braids, gimp, beaded edgings, tinsel, gold, silver and jet.
Paste-resist: a resist dyeing process in which a thick paste is applied to the surface of the fabric and allowed to harden before the cloth is dyed.
Patchwork: the piecing together of fragments of material to make a patterns. The pieces may be regular or irregular shapes.
Patola: a silk sari woven in Gujarat by the double ikat technique. Traditionally, the Patola is a marriage sari in some communities of Gujarat. Historically, widely traded and widely influential right across Southeast Asia.
Pattern darning: a method of disposing running stitches as a filling to create one or more patterns. It is usually worked by counting warp and weft yarns of the ground fabric.
Patterning warps: a supplementary set of warps that patterns the ground weave.
Patterning and brocaded wefts: supplementary weft sets, in addition to those forming the ground weave, which produce the pattern. Supplementary patterning wefts extend the full width of the fabric and are visible on the face of the weave only as required by the pattern. Supplementary brocading wefts are inserted only in those areas of the weave where patterning is required.
Pelepai: (Indonesia) one to three yards long supplementary-weft ritual cloth from Lampung, southwest Sumatra. Usually decorated with a ‘ship of the dead’ pattern.
Phaa Nung: Thai term for a hip wrapper.
Phaa Puum Kamen: term used in Laos and Cambodia for a long hip wrapper.
Phaa sin: Thai term for a woman’s skirt.
Picotage: a term used to describe a dotted background in block-printed textiles. Achieved by driving nails into the carved wooden block used to print the pattern.
Pigments: coloring agents which stay on the surface of a fabric.
Pile: (1) a surface formed during weaving by supplementary elements that project from the foundation weave. (2) a surface embellishment of projecting threads formed through a needlework technique or a woven foundation.
Plangi: or pelangi (Indonesia) resist-dyeing process commonly known as tie-and-die, whereby areas of the cloth are bound off with dye-resistant fibres prior to dyeing. The resultant pattern is usually of small circles.
Plain weave: the most basic of weaves using a simple alternate lacing of warp and weft yarns. Any type of yarn made from any fibres can be manufactured into a plain weave fabric.
Pori Lonjong: (Indonesia) long warp-ikat textile woven by the Toraja of Sulawesi.
Portiere: curtain hung around or over a doorway.
Prada or perada: (Indonesia) decoration of cloth by the gluing-on of gold leaf or gold dust.
Pua: (Indonesia) large warp ikat or sungkit ritual cloth of the Iban of Sarawak.
Pulled thread work: a needlework technique in which embroidered elements divert threads of the foundation fabric out of their woven alignment by wrapping and tightly pulling sets of warps or wefts together and forming open areas in the foundation fabric.
Quilt: bedcover formed by the process of quilting, that is, by stitching or sewing two layers of cloth together with a soft filling in between the layers. In the process, stitching produces the pattern.
Ramie: a bast fibre, similar to flax which comes from the stalk of a plant grown in China.
Rayon: formerly known as artificial silk, it is not silk at all, although it is made of practically the same elements that the worm consumes in producing silk, namely cellulose. But the silkworm produces an animal fiber, whereas the cellulose fiber is purely a vegetable product. Spruce wood-pulp and cotton supply the major part of the raw material for manufacturing rayon.
Repeat: the measurements of length and width in which a pattern unit is repeated.
Roller printing: a method of surface patterning a fabric with dye transferred to the fabric passed between a wooden cylinder carved or decorated with copper strips and pins, or by an engraved metal cylinder and a pressure roller.
Romanian stitch: a type of self-couching stitch in which the couching thread holds down the first long stitch with long loose slanting stitches on the journey back. Both the couching thread and the couched thread are the same. In appearance, the couching stitch is long on the front face and short on the back face of the fabric.
Rumal: Indian cloth, usually square, used to cover gifts or food.
Running stitch: the most basic stitch, which moves in a straight line, in and out of a fabric, creating floats on each side.
Sainchi Phulkari: type of Indian embroidered hanging, ceremonial cover, or woman’s head covering, from the Punjab and surrounding areas, decorated with scenes of village and domestic life.
Samite: fabric woven with weft-faced compound twill.
Sampler: a small piece of fabric bearing examples of patterns for the purpose of recording these.
Sari: long garment-cloth forming the dress of the woman in many parts of India. The sari is pleated around a tight waist-cord to form a long skirt falling to the ankles; the free end, which is usually decorated, is then draped up over the back to fall gracefully over the head or over one shoulder.
Sarita: (Indonesia) long cotton banners of indigenous rice-paste batik, or of Dutch industrial manufacture, employed for ritual use or for clothing by the Totaja of Sulawesi.
Sarong: (Indonesia) tubular waistcloth.
Sateen: a fabric made from low lustre yarns such as cotton. The fabric has a soft, smooth finish with a gentle sheen.
Satin: fabric made with a satin weave construction, a basic weave characterised by long floats of yarn on the face of the fabric. Traditional fabric for evening wear and wedding garments. High lustre yarns are used for the weave which also have a low amount of twist. True satin weave fabric always has the warp yarns floating over the weft yarns.
Satin stitch: a type of flat stitch in which simple straight flat stitches are disposed by laying a series of straight stitches parallel and close together on both faces of the ground cloth. Each stitch returns on the reverse of the cloth to a point contiguous to its starting point so that the area is covered on both faces by identical stitches.
Satin weave: a simple float weave requiring a minimum of five warp and weft sets in which warps float over a minimum of four wefts, are never bound by more than one weft, and the diagonal alignment of floats is prevented by maintaining at least one intervening warp between binding points on successive wefts.
Screen printing: a method of surface patterning a fabric by forcing a thick dye through a stretched screen onto which the negative of a design has been transferred. The pattern may be transferred by painting directly onto the screen, cutting and applying a stencil, or using photo-mechanical techniques. The dye paste is applied to the fabric by pushing it through the screen with a squeegee. One screen is required for each color.
Seko mandi: (Indonesia) warp ikat funeral shroud of the Toraja of Sulawesi.
Selendang: (Indonesia) shawl, usually a narrow rectangular cloth worn over the shoulder.
Self-couching: a couching technique in which the same yarn that is used to create the ‘float’ across the surface of the fabric is used on the return pass to tie down the long straight float with a short straight or a long slanting stitch.
Self-patterning ground wefts: wefts belonging to the set that forms the ground or foundation weave, suspending its ground weave interlacing order so as to pattern the weave surface by floating unbound, or by interlacing with a secondary binding warp set in a supplementary interlacing order.
Selimut: (Indonesia) large shawl or mantle.
Selvedges: the vertical, warp edges of a textile; the point at which the wefts turn on the warps.
Semen: (Indonesia) category of figurative batik background patterns.
Seraser: Turkish fabric in weft-faced compound plain weave with silk, silver, and gilt threads.
Shadow work: an embroidery technique producing a muted effect or color, it is always worked from the back in closed herringbone stitch in a strongly-colored thread on to a sheer fabric. From the front of the design appears an outline as a row of back stitches with the color of the closed herringbone stitch softly muted.
Silk: a natural filament produced by the silkworm in the making of it's cocoon. Most silk now collected from cultivated silkworms. The silkworms feed on mulberry leaves. Around 1 kilometre of silk produced from each cocoon which is first placed in boiling water to kill the larvae and soften the filament.
Single-faced satin stitch: a variation of satin stitch which does not cover both faces of the fabric with identical stitches. This stitch was often used to conserve thread, and is also called the surface satin stitch.
Spinning: the process of twisting together and drawing out massed short fibres into a continuous strand.
Sirat: (Indonesia) Iban man’s loincloth.
Slip design: a design drawn on fabric to be embroidered and/or appliquéd onto another surface.
Soga: a brown dye characteristic of central Javanese batik, derived from the bark of the soga tree.
Songket: (Indonesia) cloth patterned with the supplementary weft techniques, where the supplementary wefts , usually of metal thread or silk, differ in material and texture from the ground weft threads.
Staining: a method of coloring small sections of pattern on fabrics after the weaving is completed, by the staining or daubing of dyes, usually of a fugitive nature.
Stitch: one complete movement of an element through a fabric or portion of a fabric structure by means of a needle or some equivalent implement; also, the portion of the element disposed in or on the fabric by such a movement. Simple stitch structures fall into five general categories: flat, looped, knotted, crossed, and composite.
Stump work: an embroidery in which some parts of the pattern appear in high relief, raised by a foundation of wool or cotton wool, with knot-stitch, a method almost exclusively of the Restoration period. It is likely that stump-work was purely an amateur or home art.
Sungkit: (Indonesia) decorative technique in which discontinuous supplementary wefts are worked on a passive warp between two regular wefts.
Supplementary warp: a weaving technique in which an additional set of warp threads is woven into a textile to create a decorative pattern.
Supplementary weft: a weaving technique in which an additional ornamental weft threads is woven into a textile to create a decorative pattern.
Swatch: a sample or specimen of a cloth design.
Synthetic dyes: synthetic chemicals used as dyestuffs. Increasingly available since the first aniline dyes were discovered in the mid-nineteenth century.
Taffeta: crisp, closely-woven cloth of silk or silk-like fibres such as rayon.
Tambal miring: (Indonesia) ‘patchwork’ batik design
Tambour work: a technique by which surface chain stitches are formed with the aid of a hooked needle.
Tapestry weave: weft-faced plainweave, with discontinuous - usually differently-colored - wefts woven back and forth within their own patterning areas.
Tapis: (Indonesia) woman’s sarong from south Sumatra.
Tatibin: (Indonesia) one-yard-long narrow supplementary-weft ritual cloth from Lampung, southwest Sumatra.
Tent stitch: a needlework stitch usually executed on an open, plain weave ground, known as canvas. It is worked in rows moving diagonally over one warp and weft intersection on the face and behind two warps and one weft on the reverse.
Thread: a simple continuous aggregate of fibres that is suitable for textile construction.
Tied Beiderwand: specialized form of tied double weave in which two layers are linked by supplementary binding points called stitched ties.
Tie-dyeing: technique of wrapping or tying fabric before dyeing to create areas that will resist dyes to reserve a pattern.
Tiga Negri: (Indonesia) literally ‘three country’, batik waxed and dyed in thee different areas of Java.
Tritik: (Indonesia) resist process in which designs are reserved by sewing and gathering the cloth before dyeing. Also called stitched resist.
Twill weave: a simple float weave requiring a minimum of three warp and weft sets where warps are bound on successive wefts producing a diagonal alignment of binding points.
Tulis: Indonesian term for hand-drawn batik.
Turkish stitch or triangular two-sided stitch: a type of flat stitch worked by counting warp and weft yarns and diagonal to the ground fabric. The needle always passes over and under the same number of of warp and weft yarns in a diagonal line. On the journey bacj the needle follows the same line and the threads forms slanting stitches.
Turmeric: a fugitive yellow dyestuff obtained from the rhizome of the Curcuma domestica plant
Valance: a hanging drapery for beds, windows, etc.
Vegetable dyes: dyestuffs obtained from naturally-occurring plant material
Velvet: a weave with a woven pile formed by supplementary pile warps, which are raised above the ground weave and over rods introduced during the weaving. The rods are removed after inserting several sheds of weft, which hold the supplementary pile warps in loops above the ground weave. Pile may be cut or uncut.
Warp: in woven fabrics, the yarn running lengthwise and interwoven with the weft yarns.
Warp-faced: a textile in which the warp is predominant and/or conceals the weft on the face of the weave.
Warp ikat: the ikat-resist dyeing process is applied only to the warp threads, to pattern them prior to weaving.
Weaving: the process of making a textile on a loom by interlacing warp and weft threads in a specific order.
Weft: in woven fabrics the filling yarn that runs at right angles to the warp yarn.
Weft ikat: the ikat-resist dyeing process is applied only to the weft threads, to pattern them prior to weaving.
Weft substitution: the exchange of wefts to change color in either the ground or pattern.
White work or German work: a needlework technique in which all embroidered elements and the foundation fabric are white.
Wool: from the fleece of sheep although can also be fleece from alpaca, angora, cashmere goat or vicuna. The fibre made minute overlapping scales which give it a felting property. It is strong and resilient, soft and very warm. It also wicks away moisture. Next to cotton, wool is the most extensively used of all fibers. A pound of the finest wool will yield nearly 100 miles of thread. Although the typical wool is produced by sheep, goat's hair furnishes a long, fine silky material, much used in making beautiful textile fabrics. The angora goat yields mohair, the alpaca goat a fiber known as alpaca, and the wool made from the cashmere (kashmir) goat of India is said to be the most costly of all wools. The fine soft hair of the camel approximates sheep's wool in its structure.
Z- or S-spun: these terms refer to the direction (s) of a single yarns twist.