Calamanco (also calimanco, callimanco, or kalamink) is fabric with a glazed surface that was popular in Europe and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. [1] It was typically made of worsted-spun wool yarn, and the glazing was achieved by calendaring (pressing the cloth between hot rollers), [2] by surface-rubbing with a stone, or by applying wax to the surface. [1] The name comes from a Spanish term for worsted wool. [1]
Calamanco goes back to the late 16th century but was most popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. [2] It was made in a number of different weaves, including plain and satin weaves, damasks and brocades. [2] Early in the period, it was used in clothing, [2] but later on it was more commonly used for bed coverings, and surviving fragments are often found in quilts of the era, especially whole-cloth quilts. [1] The surface sheen of the calamanco sets off intricate quilting patterns. [1]
Calimanco has also been used as an alternative name for calico cats. It appears to have originated as a regional term in the English county of Norfolk. [3] Norwich in Norfolk was a center of calamanco manufacture. [4]
Calamanco is the name of a mare in Great Britain born around 1990; several of her offspring won races in the early 2000s. [5] [6]
Calico is a plain-woven textile made from unbleached and often not fully processed cotton. It may contain unseparated husk parts, for example. The fabric is far less fine than muslin, but less coarse and thick than canvas or denim, but it is still very cheap owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance.
A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibers. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, hemp, or other materials to produce long strands. Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting or tatting, felting, or braiding.
Fulling, also known as tucking or walking, was a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and to make it thicker. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker, or walker, all of which have become common surnames. The Welsh word for a fulling mill is pandy, which appears in many place-names, for example Tonypandy.
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 Flanders moved to Norfolk. "Worsted" yarns/fabrics are distinct from woollens : the former is considered stronger, finer, smoother, and harder than the latter.
A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but, since the 20th century, synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester are often used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts which are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug", although the term "carpet" can be applied to a floor covering that covers an entire house, whereas a "rug" is generally no bigger than a single room, and traditionally does not even span from one wall to another, and is typically not even attached as part of the floor.
Poplin, also called tabinet, was a fine but thick wool, cotton and silk fabric with a horizontal warp and a vertical weft made with twice the yarns. Nowadays it is a strong fabric 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 sides, made with a two-up, two-down weave. The worsted variety is used in making military uniforms, suits, great coats 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.
Gabardine is a tough, tightly woven fabric used to make suits, overcoats, trousers, uniforms, windbreakers and other garments.
Flannel is a soft woven fabric, of various fineness. Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool, cotton, or synthetic fiber. Vegetable flannel is made from Scots pine fibre.
Crêpe, also spelt crepe or crape, is a silk, wool, or synthetic fiber fabric with a distinctively crisp, crimped appearance. The term crape typically refers to a form of the fabric associated specifically with mourning. Crêpe is also historically called crespe or crisp.
Quilting, the stitching together of layers of padding and fabric, may date back as far as ancient Egypt.
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 in Hebrew, the Torah and hence Jewish law explicitly forbid wearing it.
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. This 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.
In the context of materials, stuff can refer to any manufactured material. This is illustrated from a quote by Sir Francis Bacon in his 1658 publication New Atlantis: "Wee have also diverse Mechanicall Arts, which you have not; and Stuffes made by them; As Papers, Linnen, Silks, Tissues; dainty Works of Feathers of wonderfull Lustre; excellent Dies, and many others." In Coventry, those completing seven-year apprenticeships with stuff merchants were entitled to become freemen of the city.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. 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, which turns yarn 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.
A woven coverlet or coverlid is a type of bed covering with a woven design in colored wool yarn on a background of natural linen or cotton. Coverlets were woven in almost every community in the United States from the colonial era until the late 19th century.
Bunting is any festive decorations made of fabric, or of plastic, paper or even cardboard in imitation of fabric. Typical forms of bunting are strings of colorful triangular flags and lengths of fabric in the colors of national flags gathered and draped into swags or pleated into fan shapes.
The Hat and Fragrance Textile Gallery is an exhibit space at Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont which houses quilts, hatboxes, and various other textiles. The name "Hat and Fragrance" refers both to Electra Havemeyer Webb's collection of hatboxes and to the fragrant, herbal sachets used to preserve textiles. In 1954, Shelburne Museum was the first museum to exhibit quilts as works of art; prior to this exhibition quilts were only shown as accessories in historic houses.
Moire, less often moiré, is a textile with a wavy (watered) appearance produced mainly from silk, but also wool, cotton and rayon. The watered appearance is usually created by the finishing technique called calendering. Moire effects are also achieved by certain weaves, such as varying the tension in the warp and weft of the weave. Silk treated in this way is sometimes called watered silk.
The term Provençal quilting, also known as boutis, refers to the wholecloth quilts done using a stuffing technique traditionally made in the South of France from the 17th century onwards. Boutis is a Provençal word meaning 'stuffing', describing how two layers of fabric are quilted together with stuffing sandwiched between sections of the design, creating a raised effect. The three main forms of the Provençal quilt are matelassage, piqûre de Marseilles, and boutis. These terms, along with trapunto are often debated and confused, but they are all forms of stuffed quilting associated with the region.