Textile printing involves the production of a predetermined coloured pattern on a fabric, usually with a definite repeat. It can be described as a localised form of dyeing, applying colorant to selected areas of the fabric to build up the design.Textile Printing, like Textile dyeing, is a process for applying color to a substrate. However, instead of coloring the whole substrate (cloth, carpet or yarn) as in dyeing, print color is applied only to defined areas to obtain the desired pattern. This involves different techniques and different machinery with respect to dyeing, but the physical and chemical processes that take place between the dye and the fiber are analogous to dyeing.
A Typical Printing Process Involves the Following Steps:Color paste preparation
when printing textiles, the dye or pigment is not in an aqueous liquor, instead, it is usually finely dispersed in a printing paste, in high concentrationTextile Printing
The dye or pigment paste is applied to the substrate using different techniques, which are discussed below
Fixation
Immediately after printing, the fabric is dried and then the prints are fixed mainly with steam or hot air (for pigments).
Note that intermediate drying is not carried out when printing carpets (too much energy would be needed for removing the highly viscous liquor)
After-Treatment
This final operation consists in washing and drying the fabric (it is not necessary when printing with pigments or with other particular techniques such as transfer printing).
Pigment Printing
Pigment printing has gained much importance today and for some fibers (e.g. cellulose fibers) is by far the most commonly applied technique. Pigments can be used on almost all types of textile substrates and, thanks to increased performance of modern auxiliaries, it is now possible to obtain high-quality printing using this technique.
Embroidery is an ancient variety of decorative needlework in which designs and pictures are created bystitching strands of some material on to a layer of another material. Most embroidery uses thread or woolstitched onto a woven fabric, but the stitches could be executed in, for example, wire or leather strands, and embroidery can be worked onto many materials. Non-woven traditional materials include leather andfelt, but modern textile artists embroider on many non-traditional materials such as plastic sheeting.
Often, specific embroidery stitches are used.
This article is predominantly about hand embroidery, which is embroidery done without the help of asewing machine or similar electric tool. Machine embroidery has become a vast subject on its own. It is both used for creative work on individual pieces and for mass-produced clothing products.
Embroidery has traditionally been used to decorate clothing and household furnishings including table linens, tray cloths, towels and bedding, but you can literally embroider anything as long as it is made out of an evenly woven fabric and can be held firmly in the hand or in a special embroidery hoop or tapestryframe.
The art of hand embroidery is a painstaking and laborious process, but today garments are often decorated with machine embroidery instead.
Embroidery has also been used as a form of art and for decoration, through the creation of embroidered or cross-stitch samplers, tapestries, wall-hangings and other works of textile art. Some types of patchworkalso incorporate embroidery as a form of extra decoration.
The fabrics and yarns used in traditional embroidery vary from place to place. Wool, linen, and silk have been in use for thousands of years for both fabric and yarn. Today, embroidery thread is manufactured in cotton, rayon, and novelty yarns as well as in traditional wool, linen, and silk. Ribbon embroidery uses narrow ribbon in silk or silk/organza blend ribbon, most commonly to create floral motifs.
Surface embroidery techniques such as chain stitch and couching or laid-work are the most economical of expensive yarns; couching is generally used for goldwork. Canvas work techniques, in which large amounts of yarn are buried on the back of the work, use more materials but provide a sturdier and more substantial finished textile.
In both canvas work and surface embroidery an embroidery hoop or frame can be used to stretch the material and ensure even stitching tension that prevents pattern distortion. Modern canvas work tends to follow very symmetrical counted stitching patterns with designs developing from repetition of one or only a few similar stitches in a variety of thread hues. Many forms of surface embroidery, by contrast, are distinguished by a wide range of different stitching patterns used in a single piece of work
