Natural fibres glossary

Canvas (or duck) A durable heavy fabric made from cotton, hemp or jute with coarse warp and weft yarns woven in pairs. It is often used for sails, tents, etc Carding Combing the fibres of cotton or wool to untangle and lay in the same direction in preparation for spinning. Coir A coarse fibre from the husk of the coconut often used for making rope and matting Cotton Soft, white fibre from the seed of the cotton bush used to make a wide variety of textiles for clothes, household items and industrial items Denim A hard-wearing cotton fabric usually dyed indigo and used for jeans and jackets Fabric Cloth or material made fibres or yarn by weaving, knitting or felting Felt A fabric made by matting woollen fibres using heat, soap and pounding Fibre A hair-like substance used for making yarn, which in turn is used to make textiles. Fibres are mainly categorised on the basis of source, composition and usage. Geo-textile A permeable textile material made of synthetic or natural fibres which is used to prevent erosion due to wind or water, suppress weeds and line hanging baskets Ginning Separating picked cotton balls into seed and raw cotton (lint) Hessian A rough, tough material made from jute. Often used for bags and upholstery Irrigating Using canals to transport water from reservoirs to fields for growing crops Jute A plant-stem fibre often used for making sacks and rope Knit A fabric made by looping and interlocking a single wool yarn Lint Raw cotton (before it is spun into yarn) Muslin A very light cotton fabric Natural fibre Fibres produced from renewable sources such as from the seed, stem or leaf of plants or the hair or secretion of animals Polymer Large molecules made up of many units (monomers) linked together in a chain. There are naturally occurring polymers (eg, starch and DNA) and synthetic polymers (eg, nylon and silicone) Retting The soaking, rotting and pounding of the stems of flax, jute, or hemp plants to remove the fibres from the rest of the plant Spinning The process of twisting fibres together to form yarn Synthetic fibre A fibre made by chemical reaction using wood or oil products Warp The lengthwise yarns in woven fabric Weft The crosswise yarns in woven fabric Weaving To interlace two yarns, called the warp and the weft, to form a fabric, generally on a loom Wool The fibre from the hair of sheep, goats, alpaca, llama, vicuna, yak, camel and rabbit Yarn A continuous twisted strand of natural or synthetic fibres knitted or woven together to make a textile