IMPROVEMENTS IN WEAVING ORNA- MENTAL FABRICS
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Cunningham and Robert
Cunningham at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 3rd
August 1877.
JOHN CUNNINGHAM and ROBERT CUNNINGHAM, both of Paisley, in the County of
Renfrew, North Britain, Manufacturers. "IMPROVEMENTS IN WEAVING ORNA-
MENTAL FABRICS."
This Invention has for its object to so modify the weaving of a certain kind of
ornamental fabric as to obtain a more perfect or satisfactory pattern on both sides
than what is produced by the ordinary mode of weaving the fabric.
The kind of fabric referred to is suitable for table covers, curtains, and decorative
purposes generally, and along with several other quite different fabrics is sometimes
termed a "tapestry" fabric, being best distinguished from others by a brief
description of the mode of weaving it. As hitherto manufactured it has been
woven with two warps and two or more wefts, the pattern effect being produced
by the wefts and one of the warps, which are of different colors or otherwise
different, whilst the remaining warp has been used for binding or making cloth,"
and has been comparatively fine and of a black or other color, interfering as little
as possible with the colors of the other materials.
"
The binding warp has generally been shed by means of heddles, whilst jacquard
or other pattern harness has been employed to produce the figuring. It has
necessarily resulted from the mode of weaving employed that wherever the figuring
warp has appeared on one side, the two or more wefts have appeared on the other
side, interlined or mixed with each other, thus producing an imperfect appearance
instead of a pure or unmixed effect.
By the present Invention the defect referred to is avoided by operating on the
warps altogether by jacquard or pattern harness, without heddles, and by employing
distinct patterns for the two sides of the fabric, the cards being perforated so as to
throw only one of the wefts to one side at parts corresponding to those at which the
figuring warp is thrown to the other side, the other weft or wefts being then
concealed in the middle of the fabric. Thus, for example, if the wefts are black and
yellow and the figuring warp red, and a device forming part of the pattern is a leaf,
then on one side this device may be a black leaf having a red edging on a yellow

page_text: ground, and on the other side it may be a yellow leaf on a black ground without
any red.
By the old mode of weaving, the black and yellow would be mixed at the part
opposite to the red edging, and the outline of the leaf would be consequently
indistinct; but in consequence of having two patterns, and avoiding interference
by the heddle action, according to the present Invention, the leaf or other device
can be formed with a distinct outline, and generally the pattern can be made equally
perfect on both sides of the fabric, an advantage of considerable importance in the
case of fabrics which, like curtains, are frequently exposed to view on both sides.
It will be obvious on consideration that with the improved mode of weaving the
figuring warp can be made to appear on either side of the fabric, whereas heretofore
it has generally been shown on one side only because of its appearance causing an
imperfection at the part corresponding on the other side.