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The Wright Stuff and The Wright Experience
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October 2nd 03, 06:33 AM
Steve Hix
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In article ,
(Peter Stickney) wrote:
Well, there's canvas and then there's canvas. The first two dictionary
entries that pop up for me read as follows:
1) A strong cloth made of hemp, flax, or cotton; - used for tents,
sails, etc.
2) a) A coarse cloth so woven as to form regular meshes for working
with the needle, as in tapestry, or worsted work.
b) A piece of strong cloth of which the surface has been prepared
to receive painting, commonly painting in oil.
So, at a glance, Irish Linen could, in fact, be considered a type of
canvas, or, perhaps a cotton twill.
Cotten yes, twill no. Canvas is a plainweave fabric, strictly
alternating over and under of warp (lengthwise) and weft (across). Twill
weaves involve the warp/weft pattern varying in particular ways.
A 2/2 twill has the warp skip over twice, then under, while the weft
also skips over then under. Denim is a usually this type of twill, and
is the reason you see the diagonal pattern on the surface of the cloth.
(Blue jeans denim usually uses dyed warp, in blue, with undyed weft. It
got its name because it was first commercially woven in Nimes, so fabric
"de Nimes" became "denim". Or so the story goes.)
Other twills might be 3/3 or 3/2 or other patterns.
IIRC, the Wrights used a Sateen, which is a cotton with a treated surface.
Sateen can be cotton or linen, or sometimes rayon. It's tightly-woven
warp-emphasis (not a "balanced weave") fabric intended to look like
satin. The weave makes it hold its shape well, rather than being
stretchy, like a knit or crocheted fabric. A perle cotton, treated by
strong alkaline (IIRC) is shiny, and would look very like satin.
Sorry, I got a little wound up.
(I'd be handweaving now, but things are in disarray at the house, and
the looms aren't accessible until quite a bit of jun...um...stuff gets
reorganized after the carpet replacement.)
Steve Hix