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Jimmy Walker

James John Walker (June 19, 1881 – November 18, 1946), known colloquially as Beau James, was mayor of New York City from 1926 to 1932. A flamboyant politician, he was a liberal Democrat and part of the powerful Tammany Hall machine. He was forced to resign during a corruption scandal.

Early life and political career
Walker was the son of Irish-born William H. Walker (1842–1916), a carpenter and lumberyard owner who was very active in local politics as a Democratic assemblyman and alderman from Greenwich Village, belying certain accounts of Walker's childhood that stated he grew up in poverty. Walker was not the best student and dropped out of college, eventually graduating from New York Law School in 1904. Walker's father wanted him to become a lawyer and politician, but he decided that he would rather write songs and be involved in the music industry. He wrote the lyrics for a 1906 hit, "Will You Love Me in December as You Do in May?" with songwriter Ernest Ball. Walker entered politics in 1909 and subsequently passed the bar exam in 1912.

Walker was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 5th D.) in 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913 and 1914. He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1915 to 1925, sitting in the 138th, 139th, 140th, 141st (all four 13th D.), 142nd, 143rd, 144th, 145th, 146th, 147th and 148th New York State Legislatures (all seven 12th D.); and was Minority Leader from 1920 to 1922; Temporary President of the State Senate from 1923 to 1924; and Minority Leader again in 1925. In the Senate he strongly opposed Prohibition.

During his tenure as Temporary President of the State Senate, Walker was often seen on the floor accompanied by reformist activist, future urban planner, and key Al Smith ally Robert Moses. Moses, without an official position and therefore forced to kneel beside Walker's desk rather than sit in a chair, acted sort of as an advisor for Walker. He provided Walker with arguments and facts to be used against Republican adversaries on issues that, according to author Robert Caro, "Walker had no patience to master." Moses also delivered messages to Walker on Governor Smith's behalf.

Walker was elegant and witty, but he was also willing to take down his opponents with no mercy. Ellwood Rabenold was a reformist elected to the State Senate as a Democrat. He was independent-minded and put the party's one-vote majority in 1923 in jeopardy. When Rabenold refused to support a bill that Democrats considered vital and then attacked Walker's character, Walker pledged he would "ruin" Rabenold and dedicated the rest of the term to forcing Rabenold out of politics. Walker would eventually succeed, showing no remorse for destroying his career.

Running for mayor, 1925
After his years in the Senate, Walker set his sights on the 1925 election for Mayor of New York. Beginning with the 1925 Democratic primary for mayor, Walker knew that to ultimately win the mayoral election he had to defeat the mayor, John Francis Hylan. Walker's reputation as a flamboyant man-about-town made him a hero to many working-class voters; he was often seen at legitimate theaters and illegitimate speakeasies. Walker was a clothes horse: his valet packed 43 suits for his trip to Europe in August 1927. On the other hand, his reputation for tolerating corruption made him suspect to middle-class and moralistic voters. Governor Alfred E. Smith was his mentor. Smith was a staunch supporter since Walker backed many social and cultural issues that were considered politically important, such as social welfare legislation, legalization of boxing, repeal of blue laws against Sunday baseball games, and condemning the Ku Klux Klan. Their mutual opposition to Prohibition was especially important in their political relationship.

Smith knew the secret to how Walker could win the mayoral race and overcome his tarnished reputation was for Smith to guide Walker's every move. Smith used his base in the strong political machine of Tammany Hall to secure victory. Finally, Walker himself had to be willing to change some of his more unscrupulous ways or at least provide a cover for his indiscretions. As with many things in Walker's life, he chose the latter. Instead of ending his visits to speakeasies and his friendships with chorus girls, he took those activities behind the closed doors of a penthouse funded by Tammany Hall.

Walker defeated Hylan in the Democratic primary, and after defeating Republican mayoral candidate Frank D. Waterman in the general election he became mayor of New York.

Mayor, 1926–1932
In his initial years as mayor, Walker saw the city prosper and many public works projects gain traction. In his first year, Walker created the Department of Sanitation, unified New York's public hospitals, improved many parks and playgrounds, and guided the Board of Transportation to enter into contract for the construction of an expanded subway system (the Independent Subway System or IND). Under Walker's administration, new highways and a dock for superliners were also built. He even managed to maintain the five-cent subway fare despite a threatened strike by the workers.

Walker's term was also known for the proliferation of speakeasies during Prohibition. It is a noted aspect of his career as mayor and as a member of the State Senate that Walker was strongly opposed to Prohibition. As mayor, Walker led his administration in challenging the Eighteenth Amendment by replacing the police commissioner with an inexperienced former state banking commissioner. The new police commissioner immediately dissolved the Special Service Squad. Since Walker did not feel that drinking was a crime, he discouraged the police from enforcing Prohibition law or taking an active role unless it was to curb excessive violations or would prove to be newsworthy. His affairs with "chorus girls" were widely known, and he left his wife, Janet, for showgirl Betty Compton. The first U.S. arrival in New York City of the best known Anastasia Romanov impostor, Anna Anderson, in 1928 and the eventual public denial of her by the exiled Romanovs and return to Germany in 1931 also occurred during Walker's mayoralty.

Walker was re-elected by an overwhelming margin in 1929, defeating Republican Fiorello H. La Guardia and Socialist Norman Thomas. Walker's fortunes turned downward with the economy after the stock-market crash of 1929. Patrick Joseph Hayes, the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, denounced him, implying that the immorality of the mayor, both personal and political in tolerating "girlie magazines" and casinos, was a cause of the economic downturn. It was one of the causes that led to Tammany Hall's pulling its support for Walker. Walker's image was further solidified by quotes like "A reformer is a guy who rides through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat."

Walker endorsed Al Smith for the Democratic nomination during the 1932 presidential election.

Scandal and resignation
Increasing social unrest led to investigations into corruption within Walker's administration, and he was eventually forced to testify before the investigative committee of Judge Samuel Seabury, the Seabury Commission (also known as the Hofstadter Committee). Walker caused his own downfall by accepting large sums of money from businessmen looking for municipal contracts.

One surprise witness in the Seabury investigation was Vivian Gordon. She informed the investigators that women were falsely arrested and accused of prostitution by the New York City Police Department. Police officers were given more money in their paychecks. After her testimony, Gordon was suspiciously found strangled in a park in the Bronx. The incident demonstrated to New Yorkers that corruption could lead to terrible consequences, and led to suspicion that Walker might ultimately, in some way, have been responsible for her death.

With New York City appearing as a symbol of corruption under Mayor Walker, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt knew he had to do something about Walker and his administration. Knowing that the state constitution could allow an elected mayor to be removed from office, Roosevelt felt compelled to do so but risked losing Tammany Hall's support for the Democratic nomination for president. On the other hand, if Roosevelt did nothing or let Walker off, the national newspapers would consider him weak.

Facing pressure from Roosevelt, Walker eluded questions about his personal bank accounts, stating instead that the amounts he received were "beneficences" and not bribes. He delayed any personal appearances until after Roosevelt's nomination was secured. It was then that the embattled mayor could fight no longer. Months from his national election, Roosevelt decided that he must remove Walker from office. Walker agreed and resigned on September 1, 1932. He went on a grand tour of Europe with Compton, his Ziegfeld girl. He announced on November 12, 1932, while aboard the SS Conte Grande, that he had "no desire or intention of ever holding public office again." Walker stayed in Europe until the danger of criminal prosecution appeared remote. There, he married Compton.

Later life and legacy
After his return to the United States, Walker acted as head of Majestic Records, which included such popular performing artists as Louis Prima and Bud Freeman. In 1940 he had his own radio series on WHN, Jimmy Walker's Opportunity Hour, with Henry Gladstone serving as announcer. He died at the age of 65 of a brain hemorrhage. He was interred in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

When Walker was a member of the New York State Senate, he sponsored the "Walker Law" to legalize boxing in New York. He was honored a number of times over the years by the boxing community. Walker is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame and was given the Edward J. Neil Trophy in 1945 for his service to the sport.

He also spent many summers in Atlantic Beach, New York, sometimes during his term as mayor, and afterward, for he was friends with its founder, William Austin.

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Walker as the third-worst American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.

In popular culture
A romanticized version of Walker's tenure as mayor was presented in the 1957 film Beau James, starring Bob Hope. This was a somewhat accurate depiction of Walker, who during his time as mayor had become a symbol of the jazz age romanticism. The film was based on a biography of Walker, also titled Beau James, written by Gene Fowler. A song by Dean Martin, similarly titled "Beau James", presented a highly idealized and romantic interpretation of his tenure as mayor. A book was also the basis of Jimmy, a stage musical about Walker that had a brief Broadway run from October 1969 to January 1970. The show starred Frank Gorshin as Walker and Anita Gillette as Betty Compton. There is also a song about Walker in the stage musical Fiorello!, "Gentleman Jimmy".

Footage of Walker is used in the 1983 Woody Allen film Zelig; Walker is one of the guests during Zelig's visit to William Randolph Hearst's mansion, Hearst Castle, in San Simeon, California.

The 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, lists the exiles in Paris as "Jimmy Walker, and a few ex-presidents from South America and Cuba".

Walker was referenced in "Last Call", the December 6, 2010, episode of the ABC television series Castle.

The political and criminal activity surrounding Walker's 1929 campaign features heavily in Tom Bradby's 2009 novel Blood Money.

In 2021, the off-Broadway play Tammany Hall depicted the 1929 mayoral election between Walker and La Guardia.

title: Jimmy Walker


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Talk:Vulgar Latin

about the map shown where latin was spoken in the roman empire
the map couldn't be more lazy! its literally a map of the east and western roman empires. someone needs to change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FizzoXD (talk • contribs) 02:43, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * At least in the area of Sicily and southern Italy, it's obvious that it's not just an east-west map. However, a source would be nice, of course. --Jotamar (talk) 19:30, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Lexical drift/shift
it does not make sense to say that words were "replaced with [...] native semantic shifts". The words were not replaced: their meanings simply changed. Semantic shift, which is covered in a dedicated section below, is not the same thing as the loss of a word. The Nicodene (talk) 01:11, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

 * I suppose you might be referring to the fact that words were often replaced by other words that had experienced semantic shifts, e.g. urbem 'city' was replaced by civitatem, which had shifted from 'citizenry' to 'city'. I will add a note that mentions that. The Nicodene (talk) 01:33, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. Os, for example, is lost, replaced by bucca (once presumably 'cheek') for the meaning 'mouth'. Happens all the time, although the completeness of the replacement can be quite variable, as in testa replacing caput -- both alive and well in Italian as 'head', chef pretty much only figurative in French, having given way to tête as literal 'head'. In any case, it can make perfect sense, and be perfectly true, to say that loss can result from native semantic shift (or dodge the causation trap by saying loss can accompany shift), if that's what happened. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:50, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

 * It's not "replacement" then, at the Vulgar Latin or 'Proto-Romance' level, if both words survive widely, but rather competition. I deliberately avoided claiming, for instance, that "causa [replaced] res", as you have in the most recent edit, because res survives quite widely in Romance. The Nicodene (talk) 16:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * (I didn't touch causa/res in any edit.) There's no claim whatsoever that semantic shift necessitates loss. The world has to be reported as it actually is. In the case of os/bucca, os was lost, bucca replaced it. In the case of testa/caput, outcomes vary widely, and establishing the status in VL would take a good bit of digging. But that sort of thing is of interest, too: St Jerome appears to use testa to refer to a skull used as drinking vessel, i.e. a possible snapshot of "Latin becoming Romance" and how it happened. But back to the larger point: the vocabulary section would be free to be more informative if it didn't start out with loss pure and simple. Partial replacements, specializations, etc. illustrate the richer texture of reality and offer more insight into VL > Romance. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:30, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, I thought you were 93.146.44.130.
 * It seems we don't actually disagree on anything other than some bits of phrasing.
 * I agree that the section would benefit from an additional subsection on semantic specialization or other topics. There is some more information on the dedicated page (Lexical changes from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance), but that too could use elaboration. I welcome any such efforts.
 * At the moment I am more focused on rewriting the 'grammar' section of this wiki page, as it is the last remaining section that is undersourced/in urgent need of revision. Perhaps then we can finally remove the banner that has been sitting on the top of the page since 2012. The Nicodene (talk) 18:09, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know which banner you mean. Also, agreed that the "grammar" section is much too verbose, but it's far from being the only one that's in urgent need of revision. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 22:57, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The banner that reads 'this article needs additional citations for verification'.
 * What about the other sections calls for urgent revision? Their content has by now been cited and vetted for accuracy, as far as I can tell. The Nicodene (talk) 23:42, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Every section needs work, starting with the lead: "Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular[1] or Colloquial Latin,[2] is non-literary Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onwards." Really? The registers and sociolects that exist in any society didn't exist before the Late Roman Republic? Every section has conspicuous problems both conceptual and factual. Origins of the term, for example, gives short shrift to origins of the term, then wanders off to speak of Raynouard and Diez for reasons unexplained, yet presents nothing of the many decades of disagreement about the term's meaning and the wisdom of using it. Etc. My guess is that the article won't begin to come into the informative shape that it should have until all who contribute read and understand Paul Lloyd's 1979 article. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 02:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * "Since Vulgar Latin as so defined is in essence the spoken language of people who were scarcely influenced at all by the literary tradition, we can talk of the existence of Vulgar Latin only from the time when that literary tradition was first instituted, that is, at least from the last centuries of the Roman Republic." (Herman 2000: 7)
 * If you would like to expand on the origins of the term, please do so. My main concern right now is making sure what the article contains is at least cited and accurate. The Nicodene (talk) 09:01, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Having just now read through Lloyd's article, I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with it. I have more than once fantasized about simply tearing down this entire Wiki page, leaving only a condensed commentary similar to Lloyd's as a sort of epitaph. The Nicodene (talk) 09:50, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * No time at present, so very briefly, topics separated by //. The quote from Herman is not solely his opinion, but it's not everyone's, and it's too narrow for purposes of the lead. The point is "normal" registers in the speech of the masses, containing features for various reasons not normally used in formal oratory or in literary contexts. I.e. Spoken Latin, pure and simple. (Cicero himself was from the boondocks; it's a pretty safe bet that he had command of a wide range of registers and used them appropriately.) // Not clear that removing the other citations from the lead improves citation or accuracy. // The Origins section could be re-cast as History of the term, thus allowing description of its use/conceptualization over time, down to Lloyd's conclusions. // No time to compile a list now, but every section needs an objective check. Just going down the list, Sources, for example, has a glaring hole: non-Classical features widely shared by Romance languages. // The Vulgar Latin articles in Italian, French and Spanish are very useful as touchstones. They have their problems, too (e.g. substratomania in Italian), but some content is handled much better than in the English article. Well worth reviewing them, sifting wheat from chaff. // I sympathize with the frustration of tackling the term. But it's real and not fading as fast as one might hope, thus important to make the contents as accurate and updated as possible. // So much more, but must run. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:13, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've made some changes along these lines to the lead and the discussion of the term. I hope they are ok but please do review. Jim Killock (talk) 11:40, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Versteegh: Lloyd was right when he advocated discarding the term [Vulgar Latin] once and for all
No time at all just now for me to update the article text with this and other works cited (e.g. Vincent 2016) in mind, but in case anyone does have time, I thought it might be useful to stick this note up bulletin board style. It's the conclusion (bold added for the nonce) of Kees Versteegh's 2021 article "The ghost of Vulgar Latin: History of a misnomer" in Historiographia Linguistica, 48.205-227. https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/hl.00091.ver

One might have expected that the problematic value of written documents for the reconstruction of the spoken language would have put a stop to the notion of an intermediate language, but the idea lingers that Vulgar Latin was an actual variety of the language, retrievable from the texts and helpful for the reconstruction of Proto-Romance.15 Significantly, the main conferences on this topic, organized since 1985 have retained the title of Latin vulgaire – Latin tardif, even though, as Väänänen (Väänänen 1981: 3) points out, one of the founders, Einar Löfstedt (1880–1955), admitted that one could never find an adequate definition for the notion of ‘Vulgar Latin’ (Löfstedt 1956 [1933]: II, 355). It is a notion that distracts from the dynamics of language acquisition in the provinces of the Roman empire. This is the fundamental insight that Cittadini and Bonamy contributed to the study of the Romance languages: what the inhabitants of the provinces were exposed to was the Latin of common soldiers and traders, often vulgar no doubt, but not the Vulgar Latin introduced by scholars to fill the gap between Latin and the Romance languages. For different reasons, each from his own perspective, Cittadini and Bonamy might have agreed with '''Vincent’s (2016) proposal to avoid all labels that suggest the existence of separate languages, in particular the term Vulgar Latin, and to stick to the name Latin instead. Lloyd was right when he advocated discarding the term once and for all'''. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:05, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

many cases of verbs merging as complex subtleties in Latin were reduced to simplified verbs in Romance
Quite rightly marked clarification needed. What is that supposed to mean to a linguistically naive reader? The examples given are of suppletion, which creates complexity, rather than simplifying. -- Also needing rectification in the paragraphs on suppletion (where the term is never mentioned) is the apparent assumption that conjugated verb forms are somehow derived from or responsible to the infinitive. "In Spanish and Portuguese ire and vadere merged into the verb ir", "Italian instead merged vadere and ambitare into the verb andare"? Unless ir and andare are intended as glosses of the basic meaning 'go', this is nonsense, serving only to reinforce the notion of supremacy of the infinitive. This and more might be cleaned up most efficiently and informatively with a subsection Suppletion, beginning with a statement that in Romance, verbs meaning 'go' are especially subject to it (perhaps noting also English go/wend). For starters, perusal of Aski 1995 would be helpful (Aski, Janice. 1995. Verbal suppletion: an analysis of Italian, French, and Spanish 'to go'. Linguistics 33. 403-432). Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:01, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Vulgar Latin


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Weaving

Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft, woof, or filling. The method in which these threads are interwoven affects the characteristics of the cloth. Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band that meets this definition of cloth (warp threads with a weft thread winding between) can also be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back strap loom, or other techniques that can be done without looms.

The way the warp and filling threads interlace with each other is called the weave. The majority of woven products are created with one of three basic weaves: plain weave, satin weave, or twill weave. Woven cloth can be plain or classic (in one colour or a simple pattern), or can be woven in decorative or artistic design.

Process and terminology
In general, weaving involves using a loom to interlace two sets of threads at right angles to each other: the warp which runs longitudinally and the weft (older woof) that crosses it. (Weft is an Old English word meaning "that which is woven"; compare leave and left.) One warp thread is called an end and one weft thread is called a pick. The warp threads are held taut and in parallel to each other, typically in a loom. There are many types of looms.

Weaving can be summarized as a repetition of these three actions, also called the primary motions of the loom.
 * Shedding: where the warp threads (ends) are separated by raising or lowering heald frames (heddles) to form a clear space, referred to as the shed where the pick can pass
 * Picking: where the weft or pick is propelled across the loom by hand, an air-jet, a rapier or a shuttle
 * Beating-up or battening: where the weft is pushed up against the fell of the cloth by the reed

The warp is divided into two overlapping groups, or lines (most often adjacent threads belonging to the opposite group) that run in two planes, one above another, so the shuttle can be passed between them in a straight motion. Then, the upper group is lowered by the loom mechanism, and the lower group is raised (shedding), allowing the shuttle to pass in the opposite direction, also in a straight motion. Repeating these actions forms a fabric mesh but without beating-up, the final distance between the adjacent wefts would be irregular and far too large.

The secondary motions of the loom are the:
 * Let off motion: where the warp is let off the warp beam at a regulated speed to make the filling even and of the required design
 * Take up motion: takes up the woven fabric in a regulated manner so that the density of filling is maintained

The tertiary motions of the loom are the stop motions: to stop the loom in the event of a thread break. The two main stop motions are the
 * Warp stop motion
 * Weft stop motion

The principal parts of a loom are the frame, the warp-beam or weavers beam, the cloth-roll (apron bar), the heddles, and their mounting, the reed. The warp-beam is a wooden or metal cylinder on the back of the loom on which the warp is delivered. The threads of the warp extend in parallel order from the warp-beam to the front of the loom where they are attached to the cloth-roll. Each thread or group of threads of the warp passes through an opening (eye) in a heddle. The warp threads are separated by the heddles into two or more groups, each controlled and automatically drawn up and down by the motion of the heddles. In the case of small patterns the movement of the heddles is controlled by "cams" which move up the heddles by means of a frame called a harness; in larger patterns the heddles are controlled by a dobby mechanism, where the healds are raised according to pegs inserted into a revolving drum. Where a complex design is required, the healds are raised by harness cords attached to a Jacquard machine. Every time the harness (the heddles) moves up or down, an opening (shed) is made between the threads of warp, through which the pick is inserted. Traditionally the weft thread is inserted by a shuttle.

On a conventional loom, continuous weft thread is carried on a pirn, in a shuttle that passes through the shed. A handloom weaver could propel the shuttle by throwing it from side to side with the aid of a picking stick. The "picking" on a power loom is done by rapidly hitting the shuttle from each side using an overpick or underpick mechanism controlled by cams 80–250 times a minute. When a pirn is depleted, it is ejected from the shuttle and replaced with the next pirn held in a battery attached to the loom. Multiple shuttle boxes allow more than one shuttle to be used. Each can carry a different colour which allows banding across the loom.

The rapier-type weaving machines do not have shuttles, they propel cut lengths of weft by means of small grippers or rapiers that pick up the filling thread and carry it halfway across the loom where another rapier picks it up and pulls it the rest of the way. Some carry the filling yarns across the loom at rates in excess of 2,000 metres per minute. Manufacturers such as Picanol have reduced the mechanical adjustments to a minimum, and control all the functions through a computer with a graphical user interface. Other types use compressed air to insert the pick. They are all fast, versatile and quiet.

The warp is sized in a starch mixture for smoother running. The loom warped (loomed or dressed) by passing the sized warp threads through two or more heddles attached to harnesses. The power weavers loom is warped by separate workers. Most looms used for industrial purposes have a machine that ties new warps threads to the waste of previously used warps threads, while still on the loom, then an operator rolls the old and new threads back on the warp beam. The harnesses are controlled by cams, dobbies or a Jacquard head.

The raising and lowering sequence of warp threads in various sequences gives rise to many possible weave structures:
 * Plain weave: plain, and hopsacks, poplin, taffeta, poult-de-soie, pibiones and grosgrain
 * Twill weave: these are described by weft float followed by warp float, arranged to give diagonal pattern; examples are 2/1 twill, 3/3 twill, or 1/2 twill. These are softer fabrics than plain weaves.
 * Satin weave: satins and sateens
 * Complex computer-generated interlacings, such as Jacquard fabric
 * Pile fabrics: fabrics with a surface of cut threads (a pile), such as velvets and velveteens
 * Selvage refers to the fabric's edge, which may be marked with the manufacturer's detail. It is a narrow edge of a woven fabric parallel to its length.
 * Thrums are the remainder yarns for tying on the loom. The portion that is not weavable warp. It is also called loom waste.

Both warp and weft can be visible in the final product. By spacing the warp more closely, it can completely cover the weft that binds it, giving a warp faced textile such as rep weave. Conversely, if the warp is spread out, the weft can slide down and completely cover the warp, giving a weft faced textile, such as a tapestry or a Kilim rug. There are a variety of loom styles for hand weaving and tapestry.

Archaeology

There are some indications that weaving was already known in the Paleolithic Era, as early as 27,000 years ago. An indistinct textile impression has been found at the Dolní Věstonice site. According to the find, the weavers of the Upper Palaeolithic were manufacturing a variety of cordage types, produced plaited basketry and sophisticated twined and plain woven cloth. The artifacts include imprints in clay and burned remnants of cloth.

The oldest known textiles found in the Americas are remnants of six finely woven textiles and cordage found in Guitarrero Cave, Peru. The weavings, made from plant fibres, are dated between 10,100 and 9080 BCE.

In 2013 a piece of cloth woven from hemp was found in burial F. 7121 at the Çatalhöyük site, suggested to be from around 7000 BCE Further finds come from the Neolithic civilisation preserved in the pile dwellings in Switzerland.

Another extant fragment from the Neolithic was found in Fayum, at a site dated to about 5000 BCE. This fragment is woven at about 12 threads by 9 threads per centimetre in a plain weave. Flax was the predominant fibre in Egypt at this time (3600 BCE) and had continued popularity in the Nile Valley, though wool became the primary fibre used in other cultures around 2000 BCE.

The oldest-known weavings in North America come from the Windover Archaeological Site in Florida. Dating from 4900 to 6500 BCE and made from plant fibres, the Windover hunter-gatherers produced "finely crafted" twined and plain weave textiles. Eighty-seven pieces of fabric were found associated with 37 burials. Researchers have identified seven different weaves in the fabric. One kind of fabric had 26 strands per inch (10 strands per centimetre). There were also weaves using two-strand and three-strand wefts. A round bag made from twine was found, as well as matting. The yarn was probably made from palm leaves. Cabbage palm, saw palmetto and scrub palmetto are all common in the area, and would have been so 8,000 years ago.

Evidence of weaving as a commercial household industry in the historical region of Macedonia has been found at the Olynthus site. When the city was destroyed by Philip II in 348 BCE, artifacts were preserved in the houses. Loomweights were found in many houses, enough to produce cloth to meet the needs of the household, but some of the houses contained more loomweights, enough for commercial production, and one of the houses was adjacent to the agora and contained three shops where many coins were found. It is probable that such homes were engaged in commercial textile manufacture.

History
Weaving was known in all the great civilisations, but no clear line of causality has been established. Early looms required two people to create the shed and one person to pass through the filling. Early looms wove a fixed length of cloth, but later ones allowed warp to be wound out as the fell progressed. Weaving became simpler when the warp was sized.

Africa
Around the 4th century BCE, the cultivation of cotton and the knowledge of its spinning and weaving in Meroë reached a high level. Export of textiles was one of the main sources of wealth for Kush. Aksumite King Ezana boasted in his inscription that he destroyed large cotton plantations in Meroë during his conquest of the region.

South America
The Indigenous people of the Americas wove textiles of cotton throughout tropical and subtropical America and in the South American Andes of wool from camelids, primarily domesticated llamas and alpacas. Cotton and the camelids were both domesticated by about 4,000 BCE. American weavers are "credited with independently inventing nearly every non-mechanized technique known today."

In the Inca Empire of the Andes, both men and women produced textiles. Women mostly did their weaving using backstrap looms to make small pieces of cloth and vertical frame and single-heddle looms for larger pieces. Men used upright looms. The Inca elite valued cumbi, which was a fine tapestry-woven textile produced on upright looms. The elite often offered cumbi as gifts of reciprocity to lords (other elite) in the Empire. In regions under direct control of the Inca, special artisans produced cumbi for the elite. Women who created cumbi in these regions were called acllas or mamaconas and men were called cumbicamayos. Andean textile weavings were of practical, symbolic, religious, and ceremonial importance and used as currency, tribute, and as a determinant of social class and rank. Sixteenth-century Spanish colonists were impressed by both the quality and quantity of textiles produced by the Inca Empire. Some of the techniques and designs are still in use in the 21st century.

Whereas European cloth-making generally created ornamentation through "suprastructural" means—by adding embroidery, ribbons, brocade, dyeing, and other elements onto the finished woven textile—pre-Columbian Andean weavers created elaborate cloth by focusing on "structural" designs involving manipulation of the warp and weft of the fabric itself. Andeans used "tapestry techniques; double-, triple- and quadruple-cloth techniques; gauze weaves; warp-patterned weaves; discontinuous warp or scaffold weaves; and plain weaves" among many other techniques, in addition to the suprastructural techniques listed above.

East Asia
The weaving of silk from silkworm cocoons has been known in China since about 3500 BCE. Silk that was intricately woven and dyed, showing a well developed craft, has been found in a Chinese tomb dating back to 2700 BCE.

Silk weaving in China was an intricate process that was very involved. Men and women, usually from the same family, had their own roles in the weaving process. The actual work of weaving was done by both men and women. Women were often weavers since it was a way they could contribute to the household income while staying at home. Women would usually weave simpler designs within the household while men would be in charge of the weaving of more intricate and complex pieces of clothing. The process of sericulture and weaving emphasized the idea that men and women should work together instead of women being subordinate to men. Weaving became an integral part of Chinese women's social identity. Several rituals and myths were associated with the promotion of silk weaving, especially as a symbol of female power. Weaving contributed to the balance between men and women's economic contributions and had many economic benefits.

There were many paths into the occupation of weaver. Women usually married into the occupation, belonged to a family of weavers and or lived in a location that had ample weather conditions that allowed for the process of silk weaving. Weavers usually belonged to the peasant class. Silk weaving became a specialized job requiring specific technology and equipment that was completed domestically within households. Although most of the silk weaving was done within the confines of the home and family, there were some specialized workshops that hired skilled silk weavers as well. These workshops took care of the weaving process, although the raising of the silkworms and reeling of the silk remained work for peasant families. The silk that was woven in workshops rather than homes were of higher quality, since the workshop could afford to hire the best weavers. These weavers were usually men who operated more complicated looms, such as the wooden draw-loom. This created a competitive market of silk weavers.

The quality and ease of the weaving process depended on the silk that was produced by the silk worms. The easiest silk to work with came from breeds of silk worms that spun their cocoons so that it could be unwound in one long strand. The reeling, or unwinding of silk worm cocoons is started by placing the cocoons in boiling water in order to break apart the silk filaments as well as kill the silk worm pupae. Women would then find the end of the strands of silk by sticking their hand into the boiling water. Usually this task was done by girls aged eight to twelve, while the more complex jobs were given to older women. They would then create a silk thread, which could vary in thickness and strength from the unwound cocoons.

After the reeling of the silk, the silk would be dyed before the weaving process began. There were many different looms and tools for weaving. For high quality and intricate designs, a wooden draw-loom or pattern loom was used. This loom would require two or three weavers and was usually operated by men. There were also other smaller looms, such as the waist loom, that could be operated by a single woman and were usually used domestically.

Sericulture and silk weaving spread to Korea by 200 BCE, to Khotan by 50 CE, and to Japan by about 300 CE.

The pit-treadle loom may have originated in India though most authorities establish the invention in China. Pedals were added to operate heddles. By the Middle Ages such devices also appeared in Persia, Sudan, Egypt and possibly the Arabian Peninsula, where "the operator sat with his feet in a pit below a fairly low-slung loom". In 700 CE, horizontal looms and vertical looms could be found in many parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. In Africa, the rich dressed in cotton while the poorer wore wool. By the 12th century it had come to Europe either from the Byzantium or Moorish Spain where the mechanism was raised higher above the ground on a more substantial frame.

Southeast Asia
In the Philippines, numerous pre-colonial weaving traditions exist among different ethnic groups. They used various plant fibers, mainly abacá or banana, but also including tree cotton, buri palm (locally known as buntal) and other palms, various grasses (like amumuting and tikog), and barkcloth. The oldest evidence of weaving traditions are Neolithic stone tools used for preparing barkcloth found in archeological sites in Sagung Cave of southern Palawan and Arku Cave of Peñablanca, Cagayan. The latter has been dated to around 1255–605 BCE.

Medieval Europe
The predominant fibre in Europe during the medieval period was wool, followed by linen and nettlecloth for the lower classes. Cotton was introduced to Sicily and Spain in the 9th century. When Sicily was captured by the Normans, they took the technology to Northern Italy and then the rest of Europe. Silk fabric production was reintroduced towards the end of this period and the more sophisticated silk weaving techniques were applied to the other staples.

The weaver worked at home and marketed his cloth at fairs. Warp-weighted looms were commonplace in Europe before the introduction of horizontal looms in the 10th and 11th centuries. Weaving became an urban craft and to regulate their trade, craftsmen applied to establish a guild. These initially were merchant guilds, but developed into separate trade guilds for each skill. The cloth merchant who was a member of a city's weavers guild was allowed to sell cloth; he acted as a middleman between the tradesmen weavers and the purchaser. The trade guilds controlled quality and the training needed before an artisan could call himself a weaver.

By the 13th century, an organisational change took place, and a system of putting out was introduced. The cloth merchant purchased the wool and provided it to the weaver, who sold his produce back to the merchant. The merchant controlled the rates of pay and economically dominated the cloth industry. The merchants' prosperity is reflected in the wool towns of eastern England; Norwich, Bury St Edmunds and Lavenham being good examples. Wool was a political issue. The supply of thread has always limited the output of a weaver. About that time, the spindle method of spinning was replaced by the great wheel and soon after the treadle-driven spinning wheel. The loom remained the same but with the increased volume of thread it could be operated continuously.

The 14th century saw considerable flux in population. The 13th century had been a period of relative peace; Europe became overpopulated. Poor weather led to a series of poor harvests and starvation. There was great loss of life in the Hundred Years War. Then in 1346, Europe was struck with the Black Death and the population was reduced by up to a half. Arable land was labour-intensive and sufficient workers no longer could be found. Land prices dropped, and land was sold and put to sheep pasture. Traders from Florence and Bruges bought the wool, then sheep-owning landlords started to weave wool outside the jurisdiction of the city and trade guilds. The weavers started by working in their own homes then production was moved into purpose-built buildings. The working hours and the amount of work were regulated. The putting-out system had been replaced by a factory system.

The migration of the Huguenot Weavers, Calvinists fleeing from religious persecution in mainland Europe, to Britain around the time of 1685 challenged the English weavers of cotton, woollen and worsted cloth, who subsequently learned the Huguenots' superior techniques.

Colonial United States
Colonial America relied heavily on Great Britain for manufactured goods of all kinds. British policy was to encourage the production of raw materials in colonies and discourage manufacturing. The Wool Act 1699 restricted the export of colonial wool. As a result, many people wove cloth from locally produced fibres. The colonists also used wool, cotton and flax (linen) for weaving, though hemp could be made into serviceable canvas and heavy cloth. They could get one cotton crop each year; until the invention of the cotton gin it was a labour-intensive process to separate the seeds from the fibres. Functional tape, bands, straps, and fringe were woven on box and paddle looms.

A plain weave was preferred as the added skill and time required to make more complex weaves kept them from common use. Sometimes designs were woven into the fabric but most were added after weaving using wood block prints or embroidery.

Industrial Revolution
Before the Industrial Revolution, weaving was a manual craft and wool was the principal staple. In the great wool districts a form of factory system had been introduced but in the uplands weavers worked from home on a putting-out system. The wooden looms of that time might be broad or narrow; broad looms were those too wide for the weaver to pass the shuttle through the shed, so that the weaver needed an expensive assistant (often an apprentice). This ceased to be necessary after John Kay invented the flying shuttle in 1733. The shuttle and the picking stick sped up the process of weaving. There was thus a shortage of thread or a surplus of weaving capacity. The opening of the Bridgewater Canal in June 1761 allowed cotton to be brought into Manchester, an area rich in fast flowing streams that could be used to power machinery. Spinning was the first to be mechanised (spinning jenny, spinning mule), and this led to limitless thread for the weaver.

Edmund Cartwright first proposed building a weaving machine that would function similar to recently developed cotton-spinning mills in 1784, drawing scorn from critics who said the weaving process was too nuanced to automate. He built a factory at Doncaster and obtained a series of patents between 1785 and 1792. In 1788, his brother Major John Cartwight built Revolution Mill at Retford (named for the centenary of the Glorious Revolution). In 1791, he licensed his loom to the Grimshaw brothers of Manchester, but their Knott Mill burnt down the following year (possibly a case of arson). Edmund Cartwight was granted a reward of £10,000 by Parliament for his efforts in 1809. However, success in power-weaving also required improvements by others, including H. Horrocks of Stockport. Only during the two decades after about 1805, did power-weaving take hold. At that time there were 250,000 hand weavers in the UK. Textile manufacture was one of the leading sectors in the British Industrial Revolution, but weaving was a comparatively late sector to be mechanised. The loom became semi-automatic in 1842 with Kenworthy and Bulloughs Lancashire Loom. The various innovations took weaving from a home-based artisan activity (labour-intensive and man-powered) to steam driven factories process. A large metal manufacturing industry grew to produce the looms, firms such as Howard & Bullough of Accrington, and Tweedales and Smalley and Platt Brothers. Most power weaving took place in weaving sheds, in small towns circling Greater Manchester away from the cotton spinning area. The earlier combination mills where spinning and weaving took place in adjacent buildings became rarer. Wool and worsted weaving took place in West Yorkshire and particular Bradford, here there were large factories such as Lister's or Drummond's, where all the processes took place. Both men and women with weaving skills emigrated, and took the knowledge to their new homes in New England, to places like Pawtucket and Lowell.

Woven 'grey cloth' was then sent to the finishers where it was bleached, dyed and printed. Natural dyes were originally used, with synthetic dyes coming in the second half of the 19th century. A demand for new dyes followed the discovery of mauveine in 1856, and its popularity in fashion. Researchers continued to explore the chemical potential of coal tar waste from the growing number of gas works in Britain and Europe, creating an entirely new sector in the chemical industry.

The invention in France of the Jacquard loom, patented in 1804, enabled complicated patterned cloths to be woven, by using punched cards to determine which threads of coloured yarn should appear on the upper side of the cloth. The jacquard allowed individual control of each warp thread, row by row without repeating, so very complex patterns were suddenly feasible. Samples exist showing calligraphy, and woven copies of engravings. Jacquards could be attached to handlooms or powerlooms.

A distinction can be made between the role and lifestyle and status of a handloom weaver, and that of the power loom weaver and craft weaver. The perceived threat of the power loom led to disquiet and industrial unrest. Well known protests movements such as the Luddites and the Chartists had handloom weavers amongst their leaders. In the early 19th-century power weaving became viable. Richard Guest in 1823 made a comparison of the productivity of power and handloom weavers:

"A very good Hand Weaver, a man twenty-five or thirty years of age, will weave two pieces of nine-eighths shirting per week, each twenty-four yards long, and containing one hundred and five shoots of weft in an inch, the reed of the cloth being a forty-four, Bolton count, and the warp and weft forty hanks to the pound, A Steam Loom Weaver, fifteen years of age, will in the same time weave seven similar pieces."

He then speculates about the wider economics of using power loom weavers: "...it may very safely be said, that the work is done in a Steam Factory containing two hundred Looms, would, if done by hand Weavers, find employment and support for a population of more than two thousand persons."With the Industrial Revolution came a growth in opportunity for women to work within textile factories. However, in spite of their gender, their work was perceived to have a lower social and economic value than work done by their male counterparts.

Modern day
In the 1920s the weaving workshop of the Bauhaus design school in Germany aimed to raise weaving, previously seen as a craft, to a fine art, and also to investigate the industrial requirements of modern weaving and fabrics. Under the direction of Gunta Stölzl, the workshop experimented with unorthodox materials, including cellophane, fibreglass, and metal. From expressionist tapestries to the development of soundproofing and light-reflective fabric, the workshop's innovative approach instigated a modernist theory of weaving. Former Bauhaus student and teacher Anni Albers published the seminal 20th-century text On Weaving in 1965. Other notables from the Bauhaus weaving workshop include Otti Berger, Margaretha Reichardt, and Benita Koch-Otte.

In the Bauhaus, the weaving workshop was considered "the women's department", and many women were forced to join against wishes to study another art form. Some weavers, like Helene Nonné-Schmidt believed that women were made to weave because they could only produce work in 2-D. She thought women lacked the spatial imagination and genius men had to work in other mediums.

Hand weaving of Persian carpets and kilims has been an important element of the tribal crafts of many of the subregions of modern day Iran. Examples of carpet types are the Lavar Kerman carpet from Kerman and the Seraband rug from Arāk.

Hand loom weavers
Handloom weaving was done by both genders but men outnumbered women partially due to the strength needed to batten. They worked from home sometimes in a well-lit attic room. The women of the house would spin the thread they needed, and attend to finishing. Later women took to weaving, they obtained their thread from the spinning mill, and working as outworkers on a piecework contract. Over time competition from the power looms drove down the piece rate and they existed in increasing poverty.

Power loom weavers
Power loom workers were usually girls and young women. They had the security of fixed hours, and except in times of hardship, such as in the cotton famine, regular income. They were paid a wage and a piece work bonus. Even when working in a combined mill, weavers stuck together and enjoyed a tight-knit community. The women usually minded the four machines and kept the looms oiled and clean. They were assisted by 'little tenters', children on a fixed wage who ran errands and did small tasks. They learnt the job of the weaver by watching. Often they would be half timers, carrying a green card which teacher and overlookers would sign to say they had turned up at the mill in the morning and the afternoon at the school. At fourteen or so they come full-time into the mill, and started by sharing looms with an experienced worker where it was important to learn quickly as they would both be on piece work. Serious problems with the loom were left to the tackler to sort out. He would inevitably be a man, as were usually the overlookers. The mill had its health and safety issues, there was a reason why the women tied their hair back with scarves. Inhaling cotton dust caused lung problems, and the noise was causing total hearing loss. Weavers would mee-maw as normal conversation was impossible. Weavers used to 'kiss the shuttle', that is, suck thread through the eye of the shuttle. This left a foul taste in the mouth due to the oil, which was also carcinogenic.

Craft weavers
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 (especially the second half of that period), continuing its influence until the 1930s. Instigated by the artist and writer William Morris (1834–1896) during the 1860s and inspired by the writings of John Ruskin (1819–1900), it had its earliest and most complete development in the British Isles but spread to Europe and North America. It was largely a reaction against mechanisation and the philosophy advocated of traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration. Handweaving was highly regarded and taken up as a decorative art.

Native Americans
Textile weaving, using cotton dyed with pigments, was a dominant craft among pre-colonization tribes of the American southwest, including various Pueblo peoples, the Zuni, and the Ute tribes. The first Spaniards to visit the region wrote about seeing Navajo blankets. With the introduction of Navajo-Churro sheep, the resulting woolen products have become very well known. By the 18th century the Navajo had begun to import yarn with their favorite color, Bayeta red. Using an upright loom, the Navajo wove blankets worn as garments and then rugs after the 1880s for trade. Navajo traded for commercial wool, such as Germantown, imported from Pennsylvania. Under the influence of European-American settlers at trading posts, Navajos created new and distinct styles, including "Two Gray Hills" (predominantly black and white, with traditional patterns), "Teec Nos Pos" (colorful, with very extensive patterns), "Ganado" (founded by Don Lorenzo Hubbell), red dominated patterns with black and white, "Crystal" (founded by J. B. Moore), "Oriental" and Persian styles (almost always with natural dyes), "Wide Ruins," "Chinlee," banded geometric patterns, "Klagetoh," diamond type patterns, "Red Mesa" and bold diamond patterns. Many of these patterns exhibit a fourfold symmetry, which is thought to embody traditional ideas about harmony, or hózhó.

Amazon cultures
Among the indigenous people of the Amazon basin densely woven palm-bast mosquito netting, or tents, were utilized by the Panoans, Tupinambá, Western Tucano, Yameo, Záparoans, and perhaps by the indigenous peoples of the central Huallaga River basin (Steward 1963:520). Aguaje palm-bast (Mauritia flexuosa, Mauritia minor, or swamp palm) and the frond spears of the Chambira palm (Astrocaryum chambira, A.munbaca, A.tucuma, also known as Cumare or Tucum) have been used for centuries by the Urarina of the Peruvian Amazon to make cordage, net-bags hammocks, and to weave fabric. Among the Urarina, the production of woven palm-fiber goods is imbued with varying degrees of an aesthetic attitude, which draws its authentication from referencing the Urarina's primordial past. Urarina mythology attests to the centrality of weaving and its role in engendering Urarina society. The post-diluvial creation myth accords women's weaving knowledge a pivotal role in Urarina social reproduction. Even though palm-fiber cloth is regularly removed from circulation through mortuary rites, Urarina palm-fiber wealth is neither completely inalienable, nor fungible since it is a fundamental medium for the expression of labor and exchange. The circulation of palm-fiber wealth stabilizes a host of social relationships, ranging from marriage and fictive kinship (compadrazco, spiritual compeership) to perpetuating relationships with the deceased.

Computer science
The Nvidia Parallel Thread Execution ISA derives some terminology (specifically the term Warp to refer to a group of concurrent processing threads) from historical weaving traditions.

Women's work
Weaving is a practice that is typically considered to be "women's work", either part of their employment, cultural practices, or leisure. The categorization of weaving as women's work has bled into many fields, from art history, anthropology, sociology, and even psychology. While claiming that women had not contributed much to civilization's history, Sigmund Freud wrote that "one technique which they may have invented [is] that of plaiting and weaving."

Women's work is often not recorded as a central activity to building Western history and culture. Yet, some anthropologists argue that textile production facilitated societal establishment and growth, therefore women were integral to perpetuating communities. To record their stories, beliefs, and symbols important to their culture, women engaged in weaving, embroidering, or other fiber practices. These practices have existed for centuries documented through art history, myth, and oral history and are still practiced today.

Reception in the mainstream art world
Weaving is often classified as "craft" alongside other art forms like ceramics, embroidery, basket weaving, and more. Historically, there has been a hierarchy between artists who were considered "craftspeople" and artists who worked in traditional mediums of painting and sculpture. The traditional artists wanted to keep artisans in the minority, so there was little reception for arts that were considered craft. In 1939, art critic Clement Greenberg wrote "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" where he presented his ideas about "high" and "low" art. His definition of "low" art was likely informed by years of theory against decoration and ornamentation, which was correlated with femininity in the early 1900s by critics like Adolf Loos and Karl Scheffler. Although Greenberg never explicitly says the word "craft", many scholars postulate that this is one of the origins of Western opposition to weaving, and more largely art that is considered craft.

Only recently has the art world begun to recognize weaving as an art form and to exhibit woven articles as art objects. Exhibitions of large scope have been organized to affirm the importance of textiles in the art historical canon, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles' With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985. Women weavers, like Anni Albers, Lenore Tawney, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Olga de Amaral, and Sheila Hicks, are now the subject of exhibitions and major retrospectives across the world.

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Yarn

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or other lubricants to withstand the stresses involved in sewing. Embroidery threads are yarns specifically designed for needlework. Yarn can be made of a number of natural or synthetic materials, and comes in a variety of colors and thicknesses (referred to as "weights"). Although yarn may be dyed different colours, most yarns are solid coloured with a uniform hue.

Etymology
The word "yarn" comes from Middle English, from the Old English gearn, akin to Old High German garn, "yarn", Dutch garen, Ancient Greek χορδή, "string", and Sanskrit, "band".

History
The human production of yarn is known to have existed since the Stone Age and earlier prehistory, with ancient fiber materials developing from animal hides, to reeds, to early fabrics. Cotton, wool, and silk were the first materials for yarn, and textile trade contributed immensely to the ancient global economy.

Materials
Yarn can be made from a number of natural or synthetic fibers, or a blend of natural and synthetic fibers.

Cotton
The most common plant fiber is cotton, which is typically spun into fine yarn for mechanical weaving or knitting into cloth.

Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by the larvae of the moth Bombyx mori. Silk production is thought to have begun in China and silk thread and cloth manufacture was well-established by the Shang dynasty (1600–1050 BCE).

Linen
Linen is another natural fiber with a long history of use for yarn and textiles. Linen fibers are derived from the flax plant.

Other plant fibers
Other plant fibers which can be spun include bamboo, hemp, maize, nettle, and soy fiber.

Animal fibers
The most common spun animal fiber is wool harvested from sheep. As long fibers make better yarn, sheep have been bred over time to produce longer fibers. This increases the need for shearing to prevent pests and overheating.

Other animal fibers used include alpaca, angora, mohair, llama, cashmere, and silk. More rarely, yarn may be spun from camel, yak, possum, musk ox, vicuña, cat, dog, wolf, rabbit, bison, or chinchilla hair, as well as turkey or ostrich feathers. Natural fibers such as these have the advantage of being slightly elastic and very breathable while trapping a great deal of air, making for some of the warmest fabrics.

Synthetic fibers
Some examples of synthetic fibers that are used as yarn are nylon, acrylic fiber, rayon, and polyester. Synthetic fibers are generally extruded in continuous strands of gel-state materials. These strands are drawn (stretched), annealed (hardened), and cured to obtain properties desirable for later processing.

Synthetic fibers come in three basic forms: staple, tow, and filament. Staple is cut fibers, generally sold in lengths up to 120 mm. Tow is a continuous "rope" of fibers consisting of many filaments loosely joined side-to-side. Filament is a continuous strand consisting of anything from one filament to many. Synthetic fiber is most often measured in a weight per linear measurement basis, along with cut length. Denier and Dtex are the most common weight to length measures. Cut-length only applies to staple fiber.

Filament extrusion is sometimes referred to as "spinning," but most people equate spinning with spun yarn production.

Yarn from recycled materials
T-shirt yarn is a recycled yarn made from the same fabric as is used in T-shirts and other clothes. It is often made from the remainder fabric of clothing manufacture, and therefore is considered a recycled and eco-friendly product. It can also be made at home out of used clothing. The resulting yarn can be used in knitted or crocheted items.

Comparison of material properties
In general, natural fibers tend to require more careful handling than synthetics because they can shrink, felt, stain, shed, fade, stretch, wrinkle, or be eaten by moths more readily, unless special treatments such as mercerization or super washing are performed to strengthen, fix color, or otherwise enhance the fiber's own properties.

Some types of protein yarns (i.e., hair, silk, feathers) may feel irritating to some people, causing contact dermatitis, hives, or wheezing. These reactions are likely a sensitivity to thicker and coarser fiber diameter or fiber ends. In fact, contrary to popular belief, wool allergies are practically unknown. According to a study reviewing the evidence of wool as an allergen conducted by Acta Dermato-Venereologica, contemporary superfine or ultrafine Merino wool with their reduced fibre diameters do not provoke itch, are well tolerated and in fact benefit eczema management. Further studies suggest that known allergens applied during textile processing are minimally present in wool garments today given current industry practices and are unlikely to lead to allergic reactions.

When natural hair-type fibers are burned, they tend to singe and have a smell of burnt hair; this is because many, like human hair, are protein-derived. Cotton and viscose (rayon) yarns burn as a wick. Synthetic yarns generally tend to melt, though some synthetics are inherently flame-retardant. Noting how an unidentified fiber strand burns and smells can assist in determining if it is natural or synthetic, and what the fiber content is.

Both synthetic and natural yarns can pill. Pilling is a function of fiber content, spinning method, twist, contiguous staple length, and fabric construction. Single ply yarns or using fibers like merino wool are known to pill more due to the fact that in the former, the single ply is not tight enough to securely retain all the fibers under abrasion, and the merino wool's short staple length allows the ends of the fibers to pop out of the twist more easily.

Yarns combining synthetic and natural fibers inherit the properties of each parent, according to the proportional composition. Synthetics are added to lower cost, increase durability, add unusual color or visual effects, provide machine washability and stain resistance, reduce heat retention, or lighten garment weight.

Spun yarn
Spun yarn is made by twisting staple fibres together to make a cohesive thread, or "single". Twisting fibres into yarn in the process called spinning can be dated back to the Upper Paleolithic, and yarn spinning was one of the first processes to be industrialized. Spun yarns are produced by placing a series of individual fibres or filaments together to form a continuous assembly of overlapping fibres, usually bound together by twist. Spun yarns may contain a single type of fibre, or be a blend of various types. Combining synthetic fibres (which can have high strength, lustre, and fire retardant qualities) with natural fibres (which have good water absorbency and skin comforting qualities) is very common. The most widely used blends are cotton-polyester and wool-acrylic fibre blends. Blends of different natural fibres are common too, especially with more expensive fibres such as alpaca, angora and cashmere.

Yarn is selected for different textiles based on the characteristics of the yarn fibres, such as warmth (wool), light weight (cotton or rayon), durability (nylon is added to sock yarn, for example), or softness (cashmere, alpaca).

Yarn is composed of twisted strands of fiber, which are known as plies when grouped together. These strands of yarn are twisted together (plied) in the opposite direction to make a thicker yarn. Depending on the direction of this final twist, the yarn will have either s-twist (the threads appear to go "up" to the left) or z-twist (to the right). For a single ply yarn, the direction of the final twist is the same as its original twist. The twist direction of yarn can affect the final properties of the fabric, and combined use of the two twist directions can nullify skewing in knitted fabric.

The mechanical integrity of yarn is derived from frictional contacts between its composing fibers. The science behind this was first studied by Galileo.

Carded and combed yarn
Combed yarns are produced by adding another step of yarn spinning, namely combing, which aligns the fibres and removes the short fibres carried over from the previous step of carding. Combed yarn results in superior-quality fabrics. In comparison to carded yarns, this particular yarn is slightly more expensive, because the weaving is a long, consuming process. Combining separates small fibres from elongated fibres, in which this procedure makes the yarn softer and smoother.

Hosiery yarn
Hosiery yarns are used in the manufacturing of knitted fabrics. Since the knitted materials are more delicate than woven materials; hence hosiery yarns are made 'softer' with fewer twists per inch than their woven counterparts. Hosiery yarn comes from a separate spinning process (melt spinning), and is used with circular knitting machines to form fabric.

Open-end yarn
Open-end yarn is produced by open-end spinning without a spindle. The method of spinning is different from ring spinning. In open-end yarn, there is no roving frame stage. Sliver from the card goes into the rotor, is spun into yarn directly. Open-end yarn can be produced from short fibers. Open-end yarns are different from ring yarns. Open-end yarns are limited to coarser counts.

Novelty yarn
Novelty yarns or complex yarns are yarns with special (fancy) effects introduced during spinning or plying. One example is slub yarns, yarn with thick or thin sections alternating regularly or irregularly. In a similar manner, creating deliberate unevenness, additions or injections of neps or metallic or synthetic fibers (along with natural fibers) in spinning creates novelty yarns.

Filament yarn
Filament yarn consists of filament fibres (very long continuous fibres) either twisted together or only grouped together. Thicker monofilaments are typically used for industrial purposes rather than fabric production or decoration. Silk is a natural filament, and synthetic filament yarns are used to produce silk-like effects.

Texturized yarn
Texturized yarns are made by a process of air texturizing filament yarns (sometimes referred to as taslanizing), which combines multiple filament yarns into a yarn with some of the characteristics of spun yarns. They are synthetic continuous filaments that are modified to impart special texture and appearance. It was originally applied to synthetic fibers to reduce transparency, slipperiness and increase warmth, absorbency and makes the yarn more opaque. It was used to manufacture a variety of textile products: knitted underwear and outer wear, shape-retaining knitted suits, overcoats. They also were used in the production of artificial fur, carpets, blankets, etc.

Colour

Yarn may be used undyed, or may be coloured with natural or artificial dyes. Most yarns have a single uniform hue, but there is also a wide selection of variegated yarns:

 * Heathered or tweed: yarn with flecks of different coloured fibre
 * Ombré: variegated yarn with light and dark shades of a single hue
 * Multicoloured: variegated yarn with two or more distinct hues (a "parrot colourway" might have green, yellow and red)
 * Self-striping: yarn dyed with lengths of colour that will automatically create stripes in a knitted or crocheted object
 * Marled: yarn made from strands of different-coloured yarn twisted together, sometimes in closely related hues

Weight
Yarn quantities for handcrafts are usually measured and sold by weight in ounces (oz) or grams (g). Common sizes include 25g, 50g, and 100g skeins. Some companies also primarily measure in ounces with common sizes being three-ounce, four-ounce, six-ounce, and eight-ounce skeins. Textile measurements are taken at a standard temperature and humidity because variations in heat and humidity can cause fibers to absorb different amounts of moisture from the air, thus increasing the measured weight of the yarn without adding any fiber material. The actual length of the yarn contained in a ball or skein can vary due to the inherent heaviness of the fibre and the thickness of the strand; for instance, a 50 g skein of lace weight mohair may contain several hundred metres, while a 50 g skein of bulky wool may contain only 60 metres.

Craft yarn comes in several thicknesses or weights. This is not to be confused with the measurement and weight listed above. The Craft Yarn Council of America promotes a standardized industry system for measuring yarn weight, where weights are numbered from 0 (finest) to 7 (thickest). Each weight can be described by a number and name: Size 0 yarn is called Lace, size 1 is Super Fine, size 2 is Fine, size 3 is Light, size 4 is Medium, size 5 is Bulky, size 6 is Super Bulky, and size 7 is Jumbo.

Each weight also has several commonly used but unregulated terms associated with it. However, this naming convention is more descriptive than precise; fibre artists disagree about where on the continuum each lies, and the precise relationships between the sizes. These terms include: fingering, sport, double-knit (or DK), worsted, aran (or heavy worsted), bulky, super-bulky, and roving.

Another measurement of yarn weight, often used by weavers, is wraps per inch (WPI). The yarn is wrapped snugly around a ruler and the number of wraps that fit in an inch are counted.

Labels on yarn for handicrafts often include information on gauge, which can also help determine yarn weight. Gauge, known in the UK as tension, is a measurement of how many stitches and rows are produced per inch or per cm on a specified size of knitting needle or crochet hook. The proposed standardization uses a four-by-four inch/ten-by-ten cm knitted stockinette or single crocheted square, with the resultant number of stitches across and rows high made by the suggested tools on the label to determine the gauge.

In Europe, textile engineers often use the unit tex, which is the weight in grams of a kilometre of yarn, or decitex, which is a finer measurement corresponding to the weight in grams of 10 km of yarn. Many other units have been used over time by different industries.

Yarn skeins
There are many different ways in which yarn is wound, including hanks, skeins, donut balls, cakes, and cones.

Hank
A hank of yarn is a looped bundle of yarn, similar to how wire is typically sold. The yarn is usually tied in two places directly opposite each other to keep the loops together and to keep them from tangling. Hanks are a preferred method of fastening yarn for many yarn sellers and yarn-dyers due to its ability to more widely display the qualities of the fiber. It is often wound using a swift, a standing contraption that holds a yarn hank without obstruction and spins on a central axis to facilitate yarn ball winding There are two subtypes of hanks: twisted and folded. A twisted hank is a hank that has been twisted into a rope braid. A folded hank is a hank that has been folded in half and wrapped in a label for retail purposes.

Skein
Skeins are one of the most common types of yarn ball. Although skeins are technically described as yarn that has been wound into an oblong shape, the word "skein" is used generically to describe any ball of yarn. Many large-scale yarn retailers like Lion brand and parent companies like Yarnspirations sell their yarn in skeins. Unlike other types of yarn balls, a skein allows you to access both ends of the yarn. The yarn end in the inside of the skein is called a center pull. One major complaint of center pull bullet skeins is that the inside yarn end is not easily found, and often is pulled out of the skein in a jumble of tangled yarn called "yarn barf". There are two types of skeins: a pull skein, which is more rectangular in shape, and a bullet skein, which is rounder.

Microscopic aspect of selected yarns
Below are the images taken by a digital USB microscope. These show how the yarn looks in different kinds of clothes when magnified.

title: Yarn