A blanket is a swath of soft cloth large enough either to cover or to enfold most of the user's body and thick enough to keep the body warm by trapping radiant body heat that otherwise would be lost through conduction.
A blanket is a swath of soft cloth large enough either to cover or to enfold most of the user's body and thick enough to keep the body warm by trapping radiant body heat that otherwise would be lost through conduction.
The term arose from the generalization of a specific fabric called blanke, a heavily napped undyed woolen weave. A popular theory has that the name derives from an eponymous Thomas Blanket (Blanquette), a Flemish weaver who lived in Bristol, England, in the 14th century. [1] [2] However, earlier usage of the term is possible as a borrowing of the Old French word blanket for the type of fabric, attested as early as 1278 and deriving from the adjective blanc , meaning "white". [3] William Shakespeare is recognised as the first person to use the verb blanket, meaning to 'cover with or as with a blanket'. In the play King Lear , published in 1608, the character Edgar says: "My face ile grime with filth, Blanket my loynes, else all my haire with knots." [4]
An ancient form of blanket is recorded as "Kambala". The 7th century Chinese traveler and scholar Xuanzang mentioned the stuff in his travelogue of his journey to India in 629–645 CE. He refers to "Kambala" as a woolen material made from sheep or goat's hair. He categorized it as a kind of material for clothing. [5] The Sanskrit meaning of Kambala is 'a woolen blanket." [6] [7] According to India's ancient text, the Atharvaveda, kambala is a generic term for materials such as shawls and blankets. [8] Known as "Kambali" in Kannada and Tamil, these thick coarse blankets are woven with sheep wool whose texture is extremely coarse and thick to provide adequate warmth in winter. [9]
Pandu-Kambala was a type of Kambala from Gandhāra, Ancient Indian scholar Pāṇini mentioned "pandu-kambala" from the upper parts of Gandhara, the place was "Uddiyana," which was famous for the said blankets. [10] Some more variations of old Indian blankets are "keca-lakah", "kalamitika", "talicchakam", "varavanah", "sarumitika", "paristomah", "samanatabhad", "turangastaranam", "varnakam", "paristomah", "samanatabhad". Coarse qualities were used by farmers, and herdsmen. Some of them were used to spread out on the backs of animals like horses, elephants, and bullocks. [8]
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Many types of blanket material, such as wool, are used because they are thicker and have more substantial fabric to them, but cotton can also be used for light blankets. Wool blankets are warmer and also relatively slow to burn compared to cotton. The most common types of blankets are woven acrylic, knitted polyester, mink, cotton, fleece and wool. Blankets also come with exotic crafting and exotic material such as crocheted afghan or a silk covering. The term blanket is often interchanged with comforter, quilt, and duvet, as they all have similar uses.
Blankets have been used by militaries for many centuries. [11] Militaries are some of the biggest single consumers of woolen blankets. Military blankets tend to be coarse grey, with thick fibers of over 20 microns.
Special blankets known as baby blankets are used to protect infants from the cold. Small children (and some adults) may also use a blanket as a comfort object. [12]
Blankets may be spread on the ground for a picnic or where people want to sit in a grassy or muddy area without soiling their clothing. Temporary blankets have been designed for this purpose.
Calico is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than canvas or denim. However, it is still very cheap owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance.
Worsted is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead, a village in the English county of Norfolk. That village, together with North Walsham and Aylsham, formed a manufacturing centre for yarn and cloth in the 12th century, when pasture enclosure and liming rendered the East Anglian soil too rich for the older agrarian sheep breeds. In the same period, many weavers from the County of Flanders moved to Norfolk. "Worsted" yarns/fabrics are distinct from woollens : the former is considered stronger, finer, smoother, and harder than the latter.
Woolen or woollen is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast to worsted yarn, in which the fibers are combed to lie parallel rather than carded, producing a hard, strong yarn.
Poplin, also called tabinet, is a fine wool, cotton or silk fabric that has a vertical warp and a horizontal weft. Nowadays, the name refers to a strong material in a plain weave of any fiber or blend, with crosswise ribs that typically give a corded surface.
Serge is a type of twill fabric that has diagonal lines or ridges on both inner and outer surfaces via a two-up, two-down weave. The worsted variety is used in making military uniforms, suits, greatcoats, and trench coats. Its counterpart, silk serge, is used for linings. French serge is a softer, finer variety. The word is also used for a high-quality woven woolen fabric.
Bedding, also called bedclothes or bed linen, is the materials laid above the mattress of a bed for hygiene, warmth, protection of the mattress, and decorative effect. Bedding is the removable and washable portion of a human sleeping environment. Multiple sets of bedding for each bed are often washed in rotation and/or changed seasonally to improve sleep comfort at varying room temperatures. Most standardized measurements for bedding are rectangular, but there are also some square-shaped sizes, which allows the user to put on bedding without having to consider its lengthwise orientation.
Flannel is a soft woven fabric, of varying fineness. Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool, cotton, or synthetic fiber. Flannel is commonly used to make tartan clothing, blankets, bed sheets, sleepwear, and several other uses.
A shawl is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular piece of cloth, but can also be square or triangular in shape. Other shapes include oblong shawls. It is associated with the inhabitants of the northern Indian subcontinent—particularly Kashmir and Punjab—and Central Asia, but can be found in many other parts of the world.
Double cloth or double weave is a kind of woven textile in which two or more sets of warps and one or more sets of weft or filling yarns are interconnected to form a two-layered cloth. The movement of threads between the layers allows complex patterns and surface textures to be created.
A comforter, also known as a doona in Australian English, or a continental quilt or duvet in British English, is a type of bedding made of two lengths of fabric or covering sewn together and filled with insulative materials for warmth, traditionally down or feathers, wool or cotton batting, silk, or polyester and other down alternative fibers. Like quilts, comforters are generally laid over a top bed sheet and used to cover the body during sleep. Duvets are another form of quilt, traditionally filled with feathers, though since the late 20th century often made of synthetic fibres or down alternatives.
Crêpe, also spelled crepe or crape, is a silk, wool, or synthetic fiber fabric with a distinctively crisp and crimped appearance. The term "crape" typically refers to a form of the fabric associated specifically with mourning. Crêpe was also historically called "crespe" or "crisp".
Linsey-woolsey is a coarse twill or plain-woven fabric woven with a linen warp and a woollen weft. Similar fabrics woven with a cotton warp and woollen weft in Colonial America were also called linsey-woolsey or wincey. The name derives from a combination of lin and wool. This textile has been known since ancient times. Known as shatnez (שַׁעַטְנֵז) in Hebrew, the wearing of this fabric was forbidden in the Torah and hence Jewish law.
Broadcloth is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width but the fact that it was woven much wider and then heavily milled in order to shrink it to the required width. The effect of the milling process is to draw the yarns much closer together than could be achieved in the loom and allow the individual fibres of the wool to bind together in a felting process, which results in a dense, blind face cloth with a stiff drape which is highly weather-resistant, hard wearing and capable of taking a cut edge without the need for being hemmed.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. To make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fiber from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns it into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. For decoration, the process of colouring yarn or the finished material is dyeing. For more information of the various steps, see textile manufacturing.
Textile fibers, threads, yarns and fabrics are measured in a multiplicity of units.
Textile manufacturing is one of the oldest human activities. The oldest known textiles date back to about 5000 B.C. In order to make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fibre from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving to create cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. Cloth is finished by what are described as wet process to become fabric. The fabric may be dyed, printed or decorated by embroidering with coloured yarns.
A loden cape is an overcoat of Tyrolean origin, made of a thick, water-resistant woolen material with a short pile known as loden cloth, first produced by peasants in Austria. This fabric is derived from the coarse, oily wool of mountain sheep and has a traditional earthy green colour. The name is derived from Middle High German "lode" or from Old High German "lodo", meaning "coarse cloth". It is a cloth of traditional Tracht worn in Tyrol.
Cheviot, Wool Woolen fabric originally made from Cheviot sheep wool and now also made from other types of wool or from blends of wool and man-made fibres in plain or various twill weaves. Cheviot Sheep originate from the border of England and Scotland, and their name is derived from Cheviot Hills, a range of hills in north Northumberland and the Scottish Borders. Cheviot wool possesses good spinning qualities, since the fibre is fine, soft, and pliable. It has a crispness of texture similar to serge but is slightly rougher and heavier.
Cumbi was a fine luxurious fabric of the Inca Empire. Elites used to offer cumbi to the rulers, and it was a reserved cloth for Royalty. Common people were not allowed to use Cumbi. Cumbi was a phenomenal textile art of Andean textiles.
"Narrow cloth" is cloth of a comparatively narrow width, generally less than a human armspan; precise definitions vary.
The third group is the kambala. This word, which denotes "woollen cloth" and "a blanket"
Media related to Blankets at Wikimedia Commons 
The dictionary definition of blanket at Wiktionary
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