Single Ring Spun Vs.
Double Ring Spun
Q:What’s the difference between Single Ring Spun denim and Double Ring
Spun denim?
A: A denim’s weave has yarn running both lengthwise and widthwise. Most
Ring Spun Denims are woven with Ring Spun yarns running lengthwise and
Open End yarns running widthwise, this is called a Single Ring Spun
Denim. A Double Ring Spun Denim is made with pure ring spun yarns woven
into the length and the width of the weave. Our Cheyenne fabric boasts
Double Ring Spun qualities.
Rivets
Metal tabs placed at stress points in pre-1960s jeans, introduced by
Nevada tailor Jacob Davis, who borrowed the technique from horse
blankets.
Rope Dyed
Considered as the best possible method to dye indigo yarns.
Sanding/Emerising
A fabric finishing process where fabrics are sanded (real sandpaper) to
make the surface soft without hair. Can be performed before or after
dyeing.
Sanforize
A Cluett Peabody and Company trademark for the preshrinking fabric
process that limits residual fabric shrinkage to under 1%. Developed in
the late 1920′s by the Sanforize Co., the process was used on the
garments in Wrangler’s first jeans line in 1947.
Sandblast
A laundry process where jeans before washing are literally shot with
guns of sand in order to make the jeans look as if they have been worn.
While originally done only by hand, this processing has recently become
automated. Chemicals are also now used in many laundries replacing sand.
Satin and Sateen
A fabric weave where one yarn floats over a series of yarns before it
interlaces once. When the warp floats over a series of picks (at least
four) the fabric is called satin. When the filling floats over a series
of ends the fabric is called sateen. Satin weaves make fabric surfaces
shiny and very smooth.
Scouring
An industrial process where dirt or starch (oil, grease, sizing) is
taken off fabrics.
Screening
A laundry process where jeans are checked for quality, repaired, price
tagged and packed.
Sea Island Cotton
Along with Egyptian cotton fibre, the finest grade of cotton available.
The fibre can be spun into yarn two times finer than Pima, the next
best cotton grade.
Selvage Denim
Old 28/29 inch shuttle looms produced denim where selvages were closed.
Vintage Levi’s jeans had a single red stripe along both selvages, Lee’s
had a blue/green along one, Wrangler’s was yellow. When vintage
shopping for jeanswear check jackets and jeans for selvages because
they are a great clue to the real thing!
Shade Batching
The process of selecting batches of fabrics into homogeneous shade lots
to obtain consistent color continuity in garment making.
Shade Blanket
Where fabric is cut from each roll of fabric, sewn together, with roll
numbers on the back of each pad to allow manufacturers to wash and
identify all shade colors of each roll. This is an important tool in
cutting apparel made from denim to ensure you cut garments from the
same shade group.
Shuttle
The weft insertion device that propels the filling yarn across (over
and under) the warp yarns. Shuttles used to be (shuttle looms) wooden
with a metal tip.
Silicone
Silicones are silicon-containing polymer materials that have found wide
use in industry because of their great stability. They are available as
fluids, sealant-adhesives, mouldable resins, and rubbers. When the
first silicone oil was made in the 1870s, its insensitivity to both
high and low temperatures was noted, but the first silicone rubbers
were not invented until 1943. In the 1950s silicones were developed
commercially for the aerospace and electronics industries but rapidly
found applications in many fields, especially construction. Some fluid
silicons are used in garment finishing, to give a smooth handle to
fabrics.
Silk
Silk is the filament secreted by the silkworm when spinning its cocoon,
and the name for the threads, yarns, and fabrics made from the
filament. Most commercial silk is produced by the cultivated silkworm,
Bombyx mori, which feeds exclusively on the leaves of certain varieties
of mulberry trees and spins a thin, white filament. Several species of
wild silkworm feed on oak, cherry, and mulberry leaves and produce a
brown, hairy filament that is three times the thickness of the
cultivated filament and is called tussah silk.
Singeing
A phase of finishing when the fabric surface hair is burnt (or singed)
using a controlled flame, to give a clean appearance to the fabrics.
Sizing
Starch, gelatin, glue, wax that is added to fabrics in the finishing
state to improve touch or weight and to help fabric laying in the
cutting phase. Denim fabrics for example have almost 1 oz of sizing.
Sizing is also applied to reinforce warp yarns during weaving. Most
common starches used are corn in the United States, rice in Asia, and
potato in Europe, or PVOH and other chemical substances. Look out for
fabrics containing P.C.P., a highly toxic chemical still used sometimes
as sizing agent!
Slim Leg Fit
This jean leg has no ease added to your thigh and knee measurements.
The leg of your jeans will “hug” your leg from the thigh to the knee.
Skewing
Twill fabrics have to be ensured not to skew or not unroll.
Slasher Dyed
One of the three methods to dye indigo yarn.
Sliver
Continuous strands of fibre untwisted that come from carding.
Slub Yarn
A yarn that is spun purposely to look irregular in shape (length and
diameter). Usually slub yarns are very regular in repeat and size.
Spandex (PU)
Generic name for man-made fibres derived from a resin called segmented
polyurethane. It has good stretch and recovery properties.
Spinning
Spinning is the process by which cotton, wool, flax, and other short
fibres are twisted together to produce a yarn or thread suitable for
weaving into cloth, winding into rope or cable, or used in sewing.
(Long, continuous fibres, such as silk, are not spun. To achieve
strength and the appropriate thickness, they are thrown, or twisted,
together.)
Staple
Short lengths of fibres, normally measured in inches or fraction of
inches, like those naturally found in cotton and wool. Silk, on the
other hand, is the only natural fibre that does not come in staple
lengths but instead in filament lengths.
Stonewashing
Process in which pumice stones are added to wash cycle to abrade denim
and loosen color.
S-Twist Yarn
A left handed twisted yarn. See also Z-Twist.
Sulphur
A type of dyestuff used frequently on blacks, and neutrals (khaki’s)
while economical, has only moderate fastness to washing and light.
Synthetic dyes
In 1856 William Henry Perkin, an English chemist, discovered the
synthetic dye mauveine. From this day forward, synthetic dyestuffs
began to supplant natural dyes. The synthetic-dye manufacturing
industry was founded by Perkin in 1857, when he set up facilities near
London for the commercial production of mauveine and, later, of other
synthetic dyes. Other dye-making factories followed both in the U.K.
and continental Europe, and new dyes began to appear on the market.
Synthetic Fibres
Chemicals combined into large molecules called polymers, produce fibres
like nylon, polyester, spandex, acrylic, modacrylic, olefin, saran,
spandex, and vinyon.
Tencel
A cellulose fibre invented by Courtaulds using a non-chemical solvent.
It was originally developed to produce viscose fibres without polluting
the environment. The end result was a new fibre which was not only
environmentally friendly (more than any other fibre) but also featured
very high strength and a wonderful touch.
Textile Industry
Derived from the Latin “texere” (to weave), and originally used to
describe woven fabrics, textiles has become a general term for fibres,
yarns, and other materials that can be made into fabrics as well as for
woven or knitted fabrics. Threads, cords, ropes, braids, lace,
embroidery, nets, bonding, felting, or tufting are textiles.
Textile Finishing
The non coloring process to make woven or knitted fabric more
acceptable to the consumer. Finishing processes include bleaching prior
to dyeing; treatments, sizing applied after dyeing affecting touch
treatments adding properties to enhance performance, such as
preshrinking. Greige fabric is generally dirty, harsh, unattractive and
requires considerable skill and imagination for conversion into a
desirable product. Italian textile mills are famous as being the best
finishers in the world.
Trevira
A branded type of Polyester, produced by Hoechst Fibres Inc. It offers
better Pilling performance than regular Polyester.
Twill
The term twill designates both a textile weave characterised by
diagonal structural designs and the cloth made from that weave. The
weave may be varied to produce broken or intertwining effects. Twill
fabrics are usually firm and are used especially in suits and in sport
and work clothes. Twill-weave fabrics are also used for linings,
pockets, and mattress ticking. Serge, gabardine, and cheviot are major
types of twill.
Uneven Yarn
Ring Spun yarn is by nature never perfectly regular; these
irregularities can be used to give character to the yarn and
subsequently to the fabric. It can be either light to give a natural
appearance, or pronounced, to give an “antique” effect.
Even Open End yarns can sometimes reproduce the antique effect,
although they are very regular and cannot give a natural effect.
Velour
A knit or woven fabric with a thick, short, cut pile.
Velvet
A fabric with a short, closely woven pile, originally made of silk, it
is today made of rayon, nylon, acrylic cut pile fabrics.
Virgin Fibres
Fibres never made into fabric before, primarily used for wool fibres
(virgin wool), to differentiate between these and reclaimed,
reprocessed, and reused fibres.
Wales
They are a series of ribs or ridges usually running lengthwise on woven
fabrics. They describe the pile ribs found on corduroy fabrics.
Warp
The lengthwise, vertical yarns carried over and under the weft. Warp
yarns generally have more twist than weft yarns because they are
subjected to more strain in the weaving process and therefore require
more strength.
Weft (also
called filling)
The lengthwise, selvage to selvage horizontal, yarns carried over and
under the warp. Filling yarns generally have less twist than warp yarns
because they are subjected to less strain in the weaving process and
therefore require less strength.
In pile-fabric constructions, such as velvet or velveteen, extra sets
of warps are used to form the pile. A single filling yarn is known as a
pick.
Width
One of the most controversial issues in fabric sale; it can be “selvage
to selvage”, where the width value is inclusive of selvages, or
“usable”, where the value indicates the fabric effectively cuttable.
Women’s Jeans
Women’s jeans are created to flatter her figure. The thighs are cut
closer to the body. And the depth of the back yoke gives a nice fit
from the waist to the thighs.
Wrangler
This name will celebrate its 67th anniversary next year; the jeans were
manufactured by a Company called Blue Bell ( Blue Bell Overall
established in North Carolina in 1904, changed its name to Blue Bell
Company in 1925. Blue Bell became eventually the biggest work wear
company in the world!). After the war, in 1947, Blue Bell started
manufacturing jeans for cowboys. The first model was No. 11MW.
X-Dyed Fabrics
Cross dyed fabrics present a two color weave, obtained using different
color yarns in the warp and in the weft.
XX
The original denim fabric used by Levi’s for the production of their
501 jeans. According to the legend, the name 501 itself derived from
the lot number of this fabric.
Yarn
A generic term for a continuous strand spun from a group of natural or
synthetic staple fibres, or filaments, used in weaving, knitting to
form textile fabrics.
Yarn Dyed
Or Color Wovens, are fabrics produced with yarns already dyed prior to
the weaving process.
Z-Twist
A right-handed twisted yarn, as opposed to S-Twist.
*This glossary was originally posted on http://home1.inet.tele.dk/bcm/glossary.htm
but has since then been taken down. It can be found on other various
pages online.
