Textile

various fiber-based materials
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Cloth, textile or fabric are similar names for manufactured material. They are often made by weaving or knitting fibres together. It is often used to make clothing or cover furniture.

African fabric shop

Cloth can be made from natural fibres or man-made ones. Examples of natural fibres are cotton, wool, and silk. Examples of man-made fibres are nylon, rayon, and polyester.

History

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The first clothes, were worn at least 70,000 years ago and maybe much earlier. They were probably made of animal skins and helped to protect early humans from the weather. At some point, people learned to weave plant fibers into textiles.[1]

Textiles are commonly used for clothing. They are also containers such as bags and baskets. In the household, textiles are used in carpeting, upholstered furnishings, window shades, towels, coverings for tables, beds, and other flat surfaces. Textiles are also used in art. In the workplace, textiles can be used in industrial and scientific processes such as filtering. It can also be used in flags, backpacks, tents, nets, handkerchiefs, cleaning rags. It is used in transportation devices such as balloons, kites, sails, and parachutes. Textiles are also used make composite materials such as fibreglass and industrial geotextiles stronger. Textiles are used in many traditional crafts such as sewing, quilting and embroidery.

Types and sources of fibre

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Textiles are made from many materials. The fibre used in textiles are gotten from with four main sources. They are animal (wool, silk), plant (cotton, flax, jute, bamboo), mineral (asbestos, glass fibre), and synthetic (nylon, polyester, acrylic, rayon). The first three are natural.

Animal

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There are many sources of animal fibers. They include:

  • Wool refers to the hair of the domestic sheep or goat. It is different from other types of animal hair because each strand is coated with scales and lanolin. Wool is commonly used for thick clothing. Examples include:
  • Sea silk is an extremely fine, rare, and valuable fabric. It is made from the silky filaments or byssus secreted by a gland in the foot of pen shells.
  • Silk is an animal textile made from the fibres of the cocoon of the Chinese silkworm. It is spun into a smooth fabric which is soft. Around four-fifths of the silk made is made up of cultivated silk.

There are many sources of plant fibers. They include:

  • Coir (coconut fibre) is used in making twine. It is also used in making doormats, brushes, mattresses, floor tiles, and bags.
  • Straw and bamboo are both used to make hats. Straw is a dried form of grass. It is also used for stuffing, as is kapok.
  • Fibres from pulpwood trees, cotton, rice, hemp, and nettle are used in making paper.
  • Cotton, flax, jute, hemp, modal and even bamboo fibre are all used in clothing. Piña (pineapple fibre) and ramie are also fibres used in clothing.
  • Acetate is used to make certain fabrics such as silks, velvets, and taffetas shinier.
  • Seaweed is used in making textiles.
  • Rayon is a fabric gotten from plant pulp.

Mineral

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There are three sources of mineral fibers. They include:

Synthetic

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There are many sources synthetic fibres. They include

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References

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  1. Balter, Michael (2009-09-11). "Clothes Make the (Hu) Man". Science. 325 (5946): 1329. doi:10.1126/science.325_1329a. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 19745126.