Glossary of Textile Manufacturing - C

C

Calico

Calico is a type of fabric made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. Also referred to a type of Printing.

Cambric

Cambric is a lightweight cotton cloth used as fabric for lace and needlework.

Camel's Hair

Camel's Hair is a natural fiber from the camel. Camel hair can produce a variety of different coarseness of yarn. This fiber is a novelty fiber spun by hand-spinners.

Canvas

Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, and other functions where sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used on fashion handbags.

Canvas work

Canvas work is embroidery on canvas.

Carding

Carding is the processing of brushing raw or washed fibers to prepare them as textiles.

Carpet

A carpet' is any loom-woven, felted textile or grass floor covering.

Cashmere

Cashmere is wool from the Cashmere goat.

Cellulose

Cellulose; this fiber processed to make cellophane and rayon, and more recently Modal, a textile derived from beechwood cellulose.

Cheesecloth

Cheesecloth is a loosewoven cotton cloth, such as is used in pressing cheese curds.

Chiffon

Chiffon is a sheer fabric made of silk or rayon.

Chino cloth

Chino cloth is a kind of twill fabric, usually made primarily from cotton.

Chintz

Chintz is calico cloth printed with flowers and other devices in different colors. It was originally of Eastern manufacture.

Coir

Coir is a coarse fibre extracted from the fibrous outer shell of a coconut.

Colorfast (Colourfast)

Colors that will bleed or fade very easily from washing. Specifically, a textile's ability to maintain it's color without running or fading.

Cord

Cord is twisted fibre, usually intermediate between rope and string. It is also used as a shortened form of corduroy.

Corduroy

Corduroy is a durable cloth.

Cotton

Cotton is a soft fibre that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub native to the tropical and subtropical regions of both the Old World and the New World. The fibre is most often spun into thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile.

Crash

Crash is a rough fabric made from yarns that are usually undyed. The coarsest type is called Russian crash. Linen is generally used for the warp yarn, while linen and jute are used for the filler.

Crepe

Crepe is a silk fabric of a gauzy texture, having a peculiar crisp or crimpy appearance.

Crazy quilt

Crazy quilting is the textile art of patchworking.

Crinoline

Crinoline was originally a stiff fabric with a weft of horse-hair and a warp of cotton or linen thread. The fabric first appeared around 1830.

Cross-stitch

Cross-stitch is a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches are used to form a picture.

Crochet

The process of creating fabric from a length of cord, yarn, or thread with a hooked tool.

Crochet hook

A crochet hook is a type of needle, usually with a hook at one end, used to draw thread through knotted loops.

Cro-hook

The cro-hook is a special double-ended crochet hook used to make double-sided crochet. Because the hook has two ends, two colours of thread can be handled at once and freely interchanged.