Glossary

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  • A process for making narrow bands with warp patterning. Warp threads are passed through holes in the corners of hard tablets or cards made of bone or wood. These tablets are rotated back and forth around their centers to create different shed openings for the weft threads.

  • Modesty plate or ‘apron’ formerly worn by little girls.

  • A square or rectangular ceremonial cloth used in ritualized gift exchange.
  • Weft-faced patterned cloth based on plain weave or twill, in which the ground wefts are discontinuous, usually in different colors, and woven back and forth within their own color sections for the pattern. There are several types, defined by the ways the boundaries between adjacent color sections are connected slit tapestry (also see kesi and kilim); dovetailed tapestry, and interlocked or double-interlocked tapestry.

  • A type of weft-faced plain weave in which the weft yarns are discontinuous, turning back at the edges of each color area, instead of extending continuously from selvedge to selvedge.

  • Alternative term for tambi’, modesty plate.

  • A device in weaving, usually a stick with points at both ends, which is inserted into the woven cloth near its leading edge, providing tension across the warps and controlling the width of the finished textile.
  • See temple.
  • Cloth that is produced by interlacing yarns in various ways. The definition used in this book includes textiles that are woven on a loom, and those that are made in other ways, such as knitting.

  • The relationship of the elements in a finished textile. For example, plain weave and tapestry weave are structures found in woven textiles.

  • A method or process used to create a textile. Different techniques can produce the same structure. For example, a cloth woven on a loom in plain weave can have the same structure as a basket interlace using only the hands.

  • See yarn.
  • The number of warps or wefts per unit length (generally one inch or one centimeter).
  • One insertion of weft through a shed opening, either using shuttle or bobbin.
  • See flying shuttle.
  • See resist-dyeing, plangi.

  • See resist-dyeing.

  • A plaited sitting mat offered to visitors.
  • A bar pressed by the foot, used (for example) to raise a heddle or to depress a shed stick during weaving. Synonym: pedal.
  • A loom equipped with treadle(s).