Weaving in the 1950s

Several hundreds of these cones are set up in the frame and the yarns are then drawn out to the warping machine. These yarns run the length of the cloth and are called the warp. the yarns run parallel to one another and are wound on a beam. The beam has 407 pieces of yarn. Several beams are lined up on a frame and the yarns are drawn through the sizing machine for starching to give the yarns strength. After starching the yarns become wet and have therfore to be dried by rolling around hot circular drum, inside which is full of steam. The steam is supplied from a large water boiler.

After starching and drying, the beams of warp yarns are individually arranged and clipped; ready for the loom. Cotton Yarns are wound on the shuttles on which the weft thread is shot across between the warp threads. In a plain cloth, alternate warp threads are raised and the shuttle charged with a cop of weft, is passed across the loom, leaving a pick of yarn in place between the raised and unraised warp threads and at right angle to them. The raised threads are then lowered, the unraised threads simultaneously lifted and the shuttle returned in the reverse direction. The process is repeated continuously with the result that sucessive weft threads pass under and over each warp thread.