The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-10-28
MAKING OF SILK LACE.
Raw Silk Traced From Producer TO Con-
sumner.

To Nottingham, England. goes the
credit for having placed window cur
tains within the reach of the masses
As matter OF fact, Nottingham is en-
tirely innocent in the premises and the
only connection between the two lies
in the fact that Nottingham, being the
home of the English lace industry, has
been adopted as an appropriate name
to be given to the output of our cotton
lace manufactures. What Nottingham
is to England and Calais and Candre to
France, Brooklyn stands TO the United
States-the home or head center of the
lace industry.
To follow a thread of silk from its
raw state. through its course of prepa-
! ration to be worked up into delicate
| lace by the marvelously ingenious ma
chinery, is an exceedingly interesting
occupation. The silk is received in this
country in bales shipped from Italy,
China and Japan. 1t is in skeins in the
raw state, either greenish white or yell
low in color. The finest silk comes
from Italy. The thread is like hair
and is as long as the skein. The first
operation is to throw it, or in other
words bring as many threads together
as NAV be required in very fine or
heavier fabrics. When the thread Is OF
the desired thickness it is boiled TO re-
move the gum which is natural to it.
and when dry it is wound on spoois
holding several thousand yards each
This is done by machines OF from sixty
Q
( to ninety spools each
/ The spools are then put on Jack, or
I frames of pins, on which they revolre
and from which the silk is fed on
drum or warping mill through brass
plates more or less perforated with
holes, according to the number of
/ threads to be placed in the warp. An
( ingenious device registers the yards as
( they rux on the drum, so that when
/ the desired length has been wound
the machine is stopped. The warps
vary in width according TO the work
in which they are to be used The
next operation is to run the warps on
the warp beams These beams are
steel rollers of various thickness and
in width running as high as 154 inches
4
TO the beam is repetition Of the oper-
alton from the spool TO the drum To
every machine there is a main warp
which forms the ground work Of the
pattern. supplemented by several auxil-
iarv wraps of various size threads, with
which the pattern is perfected. The
main wrap may be several thousand
Yards long, while the auxiliary wraps
are shorter and are replaced from time
to time. When the skeiu is wound on
the spools part of it goes in another
direction. where the silk IS run from
the spools on 20 bobbink The bobbins
are the instruments that IN lace-nak-
ing form the design OF the pattern by
twisting around the warp threads. At
this stage the machine Is armed with
/ the material ready 10 be worked up
7 And this Is the point at which art
enters corps of draughtsnen are
employed making new designs and
LAYING out the work The design be-
ing accepta ble. a draughtsman's pat
tern is drawn 20 scale, one copy Of
which goes 20 the operator on the
machine who threads il accordingly bv
running the threads from the warp
beams whica set al the bottom of the
machine through sley cloth and per-
/ forateG steel bars ana fastened on ths
: roller az the top
This operation IS OF the most exact
inr charaeter and the greatest care
must DC exercised. as the Tais9!acing
OF q single thread viii bring disaster
70 the most es4 borate and carefully
worked out design. Zach thread IS
handed separately and N anv hours are
roq.i-ed - thread = machine Of ia
inches u width. UitAla f1at space
:he pattern Is repeated az many times
as the widsB viii sllov. 50 taat when