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What is fabric? • You all know that food, clothing and shelter are the three basic needs of life. You eat food to survive and protect yourself from diseases, you need a house to live in. Why do you wear clothes? You wear clothes for protection against climate, for modesty and beauty, and also to show status. The material that you use for clothing is called fabric.
If you go to a shop to buy fabric for your dress, you would see a variety of fabrics there. Do you wonder what these fabrics are made of? How you get variety in fabrics? Why are some materials warm, some soft and others rough? Why do some materials go bad after washing while others remain the same?
Do you know what fabrics are made of? Take a cloth and pull out a thread. Untwist to loosen this thread. You will see that it is made up of smaller threads or hair like strands. Pull out one of these. This single hair like strand is called a fibre. • A fibre is a hair like strand from which all fabrics are made.
Natural Fibres: • Some fibres are obtained from natural sources, that is, from plants and animals. Fibres from such sources are called natural fibres. • Some examples of fibres from natural sources are cotton, Jute, silk, wool, etc
Man-made Fibres: • The other type of fibres are obtained from chemical substance. These are called manmade fibres. They are rayon, polyester, nylon, acrylic (cashmilon) etc.
Classify the following fibres as man-made and natural: • (i) Nylon (ii) Wool (iii) Cotton (iv) Silk (v) Polyester (vi) Rayon(vii) Acrylic (viii) Jute
State whether the following are true or false and correct the false statements: • (i) Fibre is the basic unit of all fabrics. • (iii) Jute is the outer covering of coconut. • (iv) Silk is prepared from the stem of a plant. • (v) Polyester is a natural fibre.
Animal fibres • Wool is obtained from the fleece (hair) of sheep or yak. Silk fibres come from cocoons of the silk moth. Do you know which part of the sheep’s body yields fibres? Are you aware how these fibres are converted into the woollen yarn that we buy from the market to knit sweaters? Do you have any idea how silk fibres are made into silk, which is woven into saris?
WOOL • Wool comes from sheep, goat, yak and some other animals. These wool-yielding animals bear hair on their body. • Why do you think these animals bear hair on their body?
Activity • Feel the hair on your body and arms and those on your head. Do you find any difference? Which one seems coarse and which one is soft?
The hairy skin of the sheep has two types of fibres that form its fleece: (i) the coarse beard hair, and(ii) the fine soft under-hair close to the skin. • The fine hair provide the fibres for making wool. Some breeds of sheep possess only fine under-hair. Their parents are specially chosen to give birth to sheep which have only soft under-hair. This process of selecting parents for obtaining special characters in their offspring, such as soft under hair in sheep is called selective breeding.
The fleece of sheep is not the only source of wool. • Wool is also obtained from goat hair. The under fur of Kashmiri goat is soft. It is woven into fine shawls called Pashmina shawls. • The fur (hair) on the body of camels is also used as wool.
Activity • Collect pictures of animals whose hair is used as wool. Stick them in your note book.
Steps to Commercial Fiber Processing • Shearing – shaving the hair from the sheeps body. • Scouring -the removal of all impurities from grease wool, using water, detergent, and sometimes a mild alkali. • Drying- The amount of water held by the wool is reduce to below 15%.Moisture in wool is removed by hot, dry air blown through the wool prior to being exhausted from the dryer.
Sorting: The hairy skin is sent to a factory where hair of different textures are separated or sorted. • Carding: The woollen fibres are disentangled and straightned into a continous form. • Combing, spinning and weaving
Yarns • Do you remember pulling a thread from a cloth and opening it? Yes, you found hair like fibres. That thread which was made of fibres is called yarn. Yarns are made up of a number of fibres twisted together. Fibres are thin and small and cannot be made into a fabric directly. So they are first converted into yarns which are longer, thicker and stronger. We use these yarns to make fabrics. • A yarns is a continuous strand made up of a number of fibres which are twisted together
YARN MAKING • The process of making yarns from fibres is called spinning. Here the fibres are not only twisted but also pulled out or drawn. • The spinning process helps to hold the fibres together and makes the yarns strong, smooth and fine. • Spinning can be done by using a takli (spindle), a charkha or a spinning machine.
State whether the following are true or false: • Yarn is made of a number of fibres. • Spinning is a process of making fibres. • Spinning increases the strength of yarns. • Twisting increases the strength of the yarns. • Smoothness of a yarn depends on the twisting of the fibres.
