IMPROVEMENTS IN PRINTING PATTERNS AND DEVICES ON CLOTH, CALICO, MUSLINS, AND OTHER WOVEN FABRICS
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Peacock at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 24th June
1871.
I, JAMES PEACOCK, of New York, in the United States of America,
at present residing at Bedford Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
PRINTING PATTERNS AND DEVICES ON CLOTH, CALICO, MUSLINS, AND OTHER WOVEN
FABRICS," to be as follows: :-
This Invention relates to certain improvements in printing patterns
and devices on cloth, calico, muslins, and other woven fabrics, the object
being to produce a successive series of reversed patterns or designs on
the fabric across the warp threads in such à manner as to enable.
each pattern or design to be cut out from the fabric without undue
waste of material, since the margin or border of the design forms a guide
for the cutter, thus obviating the necessity of measuring or marking the
fabric.
In order to effect these objects I propose to print the fabrics-with-the
necessary patterns and colors, but always with a marginal line which

page_text: may be used as part of the design, and which may contain an internal
ornamental border; such marginal line serving either for the external
limit of the article when made up, or otherwise merely as a guide for
dividing the piece of fabric into sections.
The chief purpose of the Invention is to improve the method of
printing skirts of dresses, aprons, or other similar forms where the
gussets when united form a portion of or an entire circular taper; it is
quite clear that in order to print such segments in the form described
certain modifications are required to enable the pieces to be cut out
with facility and sewn together with certainty of proper adjustment.
For example, if it be desired to print a pattern of an apron transversely
to the warp of the fabric, I reverse the patterns on the printing roller
alternately, thus bringing the widest part of one pattern to the narrowest
part of the next, and so continuously; I then also print the sup-
plementary pieces, such as the pocket fronts or flaps, strings or bands,
and shoulder pieces out of the blanks left between the main patterns,
and these pieces being cut out by the worker the article may easily be
sewn together and made up.
In regard to skirts of dresses the principle of the Invention is the
same, but inasmuch as when several sections or segments of fabric aro
to be sewn together to form a cone it is necessary to determine the
radial lines and arcs of the pieces I propose to print the same as guides
and to permit of selvedges to be turned in. Thus the several gores
of the skirt can be cut out and united without the ordinary waste of
material, and the series of patterns will register with certainty, and will
match all round the skirt, presenting an uniform border.
The Invention is applicable to printing other articles than aprons or
skirts, but these are the more important purposes to which the system
of reversed pattern printing can be most advantageously applied to save
labor to the operator, to economize labor, and to present a pattern
to the fabric when made up. The border may be made to imitate a
margin of tape, braid, or ribbon.