Textile - Clothing, Upholstery, Industrial | Britannica

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Textile - Clothing, Upholstery, Industrial: Almost any textile yarn can be used to produce such interlaced fabrics as woven and knitted types. In weaving, the warp, or lengthwise, yarns are subjected to greater stress and are usually stronger, smoother, and more even and have tighter twist than the weft, or crosswise, yarns. A sizing (stiffening) material such as starch may be applied to warp yarns, increasing their strength to withstand the stresses of fabric construction operations. Weft yarns, subjected to little stress during weaving, may be quite fragile. Warp and weft threads used in the same fabric may be of differing diameter, producing such special