Weaving flaws come naturally with Indian traditional fabrics. Some of these are inevitable and some of these are avoidable. Below are the details of the common weaving issues that come with the Indian traditional fabrics:
Fabric Weight
Weaving defects in the traditional fabrics arise due to
techniques used in weaving them as well as the manual operations involved in
it. They also occur as the quality of yarn used in warp and weft is compromised
or the yarn itself is handspun. In Handloom fabrics, the usual defects are
holes, mending, missing end and missing and broken picks. The fabric weight
also varies as the fabric is getting woven with variable beat up depending upon
the person and also varies during the course of the day of weaving. In the
morning, the weaver is fresh, and the beat up is more compact. As the day
progresses the picks may spread farther apart.
From the facts given above, it can be inferred. The usual
method of finding GSM by using GSM cutter is no longer valid when evaluating
handloom fabric. The best way to evaluate is to weight it thaan by thaan and
average it out.
Chira ( Missing End)
This effect occurs in all the fabrics, but it is more severe
in powerlooms which are without warp stop motion. Chira is not prevalent in
South looms as they are equipped with warp stop motion. However, for woven
fabrics of north India, it is quite a common defect.
Banding
Banding in the weft occurs due to particular contrast of
colors, it is more visible in fabrics with cross colors. Also banding is
visible when yarns are hand dyed and after the finish of one pirn, the next
pirn contains different dyed lot of yarn. It also is visible in dyed fabrics
when the count in the weft changes appreciably. It is more common in Khadis
where the yarns of weft ( Amber) come in different lots.
Tight End and Reed Mark
This forms a series of warp wise
faint lines in the fabric. It occurs due to uneven tension in the warp beam
which can happen when making the warp beam manually. It also occurs due to not
cleaning, damaged heald wires or some problems in the reed. Often reed marks
come in these fabrics.
Holes
The main cause of holes is the pointed
scale used all across the country to measure the length and fold the cloth. If
a center point is used to hold the fabrics, and the point gets blunt it can
cause appreciably visible holes and sometimes makes the whole fabric amenable
to rejecting.
Slippage of the Warp or weft
ends
This takes place in almose all
the fabrics loosly woven but it is more appreciable in silks and especially
unions of silks with Viscose. The unions from Bhagalpur are more susceptible to
this defect. To counter this the fabric after weaving is given a special starch
finish, but that too is unsustainable and gives way in three or four washes.
The cause of this defect is the smooth surface of viscose which can slip easily
on silk. This damage leads to seam slippage which is easily noticeable in the
stress areas of the garment(neck and arm whole) The solution is to improve the
construction of the fabric or use a better quality viscose. To control this
problem in garments at the nect, moon patches are applied
Specs
This defect is observed in
handloom fabrics which use handspun yarn. Based on the quality of roving they
are using these will contain foreign fibers which do not catch dyes leading to
this defect.
Rough appearance
Rough appearance occurs due to
the nature of yarn. In most of the cases carded yarn is used, which contain
short fibers which come at the top in the process of weaving. This also due to
the uneven count of yarn and slubs present therein. This defect is not a defect
as such rather than a mark of true ethnic fabrics. Moreover, hand feel of two
garments made from identical fabrics will be different as they may be woven on
different looms and subject to different treatments.
Pilling
Pilling in cotton fabric is
observed in cross colors where one of the yarn is of dark color. The short
fibers come to the surface and form a pill type structure. This defect is
aggravated when one of the yarns is sulphur dyed. This is also present in Matka
silk which is handspun and handwoven. In yarn dyed Matka, the problem is
further aggravated. Silk Noil fabrics are also a victim to this defect as they
by default contain short fibers.
