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Cotton Wool Silk Nylon Polyester |
The different types of textiles:
1) Cotton
2) Wool
3) Silk
4) Nylon
5) Polyester
A textile is a cloth, which is either woven by hand or machine. "Textile" has traditionally meant, "a woven fabric". The term comes from the Latin word texere, meaning to weave.
Fibers are the raw materials for all fabrics. Some fibers
occur in nature as fine strands that can be twisted into yarns.
These natural fibers come from plants, animals, and minerals. For most of history, people
had only natural fibers to use in making cloth. But modern science has learned how to
produce fibers by chemical and technical means. Today, these manufactured fibers account
for more than two-thirds of the fibers processed by U.S. textile mills.
Plants provide more textile fibers than do animals or
minerals. Cotton fibers produce soft, absorbent fabrics that are
widely used for clothing, sheets, and towels. Fibers of the flax plant are made into
linen. The strength and beauty of linen have made it a popular fabric for fine
tablecloths, napkins, and handkerchiefs.
The main animal fiber used for textiles is wool.
Another animal fiber, silk, produces
one of the most luxurious fabrics. Sheep supply most of the wool, but members of 
the
camel family and some goats also furnish wool. Wool provides warm, comfortable fabrics for
dresses, suits, and sweaters. Silk comes from cocoons spun by
silkworms. Workers unwind the cocoons to obtain long, natural filaments. Fabrics made from
silk fibers
have great luster and softness and can be dyed brilliant colors. Silk
is especially popular for scarfs and neckties.
Most
manufactured fibers are made from wood pulp, cotton linters, or petrochemicals.
Petrochemicals are chemicals made from crude oil and natural gas.The chief fibers
manufactured from petrochemicals include nylon, polyester, acrylic, and olefin. Nylon has exceptional strength, wears well, and is easy
to launder. It is popular for hosiery and other clothing and for carpeting and upholstery.
Such products as conveyor belts and fire hoses are also made of nylon.
Most textiles are produced by twisting fibers into yarns and then knitting or weaving the yarns into a fabric. This method of making cloth has been used for thousands of years. But throughout most of that time, workers did the twisting, knitting, or weaving largely by hand. With today's modern machinery, textile mills can manufacture as much fabric in a few seconds as it once took workers weeks to produce by hand.
Woven fabrics are made of two sets of
yarns - a lengthwise set called the warp and a crosswise set called the filling or weft.
The warp yarns are threaded into a loom through a series of frames called harnesses.
During the cloth-making process, the harnesses raise some warp yarns and lower others.
This action creates a space, or shed, between the yarns. A device called a shuttle carries
the filling through the shed and so forms the crosswise
yarns of the fabric. The pattern in which the harnesses are raised and lowered for each
pass of the shuttle determines the kind of weave.
Knitted fabrics are made from a single
yarn or a set of yarns. In making cloth, a knitting machine forms loops in the yarn and
links them to one another by means of needles. The finished fabric consists of crosswise
rows of loops, called 
courses, and lengthwise rows of loops, called wales. This looped
structure makes knitted fabrics more elastic than woven cloth. Garment
manufacturers use knitted fabrics in producing comfortable, lightweight clothing that
resists wrinkling.
Other fabrics include tufted fabrics, nets and laces, braids, and felt. None of these
fabrics is woven or knitted. However, the textile industry produces another class of
fabrics specifically called nonwoven fabrics.
