Textile Fibers and Substances Used for Making Cloth

1.All the materials used in the manufacture of clothing are called textiles and are made of either long or short fibers.

These fibers can be felted together or made into a continuous thread or yarn and then woven or knitted. So from beginning to end in the production of felt, in the spinning of a very coarse thread or in the weaving of the finest silk cloth the whole process of textile manufacture consists of the combination of fiber with fiber.

2. No material is more common in the world than fiber; it is the form of all vegetable and most animal substances flesh is fiber; muscles are bundles of fibers; leaves, flowers, stems of grass, bark and wood of trees are all fibers.

3. From the masses of fibrous substances around them, the textile workers of all lands have selected these materials which seem to them most suitable.

To be suitable for textile purposes a fiber must possess certain properties and qualities such as length, strength, cohesiveness, elasticity and many others.

4. Principal fibers now in use – wool, silk, cotton, flax – have come to us from prehistoric times and are natural fibers. Today numerous chemical fibers are being introduced. These fibers are made by man and are therefore called man-made fibers. Chemical fibers are the achievement of the development of science of the 20^th century.

5. According to their origin the fibers may be divided into vegetable fibers (cotton, flax), fibers of animal origin (wool, silk), and chemical or man-made fibers (rayon, capron, nylon, etc.)