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Shawl.

An outer garment covering the upper part of the person; commonly used by ladies, but not unfrequently by men. In the latter case it represents the outer garment of the Scotch Highlanders, the plaid, which term in time has come to be applied to any kind of checkered goods similar in pattern to the tartan of which the Highlander's plaid was made.

Shawls are made of various materials, as wool, silk, crape, etc., plain or embroidered. The cheaper kinds are generally of wool, and are woven in the usual manner.

The English and French imitations of Cashmere or India shawls are sometimes made of pure Thibetian goats' wool, frequently of goats' wool and sheep's wool, and often wholly of the latter.

The manufacture of imitation Cashmere shawls was introduced into England about 1784 by a manufacturer of Norwich. He employed a warp of Piedmontese silk and a weft of worsted yarn, the design being afterward worked in by a process of hand darning. Norwich shawls were first produced entirely in the loom in 1805. Paisley then took up the manufacture and succeeded in producing successful imitation of Cashmere, using wool only, at very low prices.

In 1802 the manufacture was begun at Paris. The invention of Jacquard's loom, or at least its perfection by Jacquard, is said to have originated in this manufacture. The French imitations of India or Cashmere shawls still approach nearer the original than any others, and command a corresponding price. Those of Scotch manufacturers are, however, but little behind them, and are constantly improving. Great care is taken in the processes of scouring, dyeing, bleaching, and weaving. A Scotch shawl of the highest quality occupies a skillful weaver for a month or more, the weaving representing more than half the value of the shawl.

India or “camel's hair” shawls are made from the hair of a goat indigenous to the Himalayas and the highlands of Thibet, which has a fine curled wool beneath the coarse upper hair. In the spring, the goats are shorn, and the coarse hairs carefully picked out. The wool is washed in a solution of potash, and afterward in pure cold water, care being taken to avoid felting the fiber. It is spun by hand, a hard and wiry twisting of the fibers being avoided. For this purpose the spinners use for a spindle a ball of clay with an iron wire attached, and keep the finger and thumb smooth with soapstone powder. The wool is twice dyed, — before carding and after spinning.

The pattern of an India shawl is worked in two very different ways. One method is to embroider it in a kind of needlework upon the material, and the other to work it into the web during the process of weaving. The latter method renders the shawl much more elegant and expensive. When this process is employed a number of skewers are used, sometimes of wood, but for the best work always of ivory, about the size of a common packing-needle. They are sharpened at both ends, and each skewer is covered with a different-colored thread. These are then worked according to a set pattern, stitch by stitch, into the web, as the weaving proceeds. As the process is very slow, no one person ever produces an entire shawl, the pattern being given out to the natives in patches or blocks, which are then by a similar method united in the common fabric. Of course but one surface of the product is presentable, the under side being a jumble of ends of threads without order or beauty.

The best are made in the vale of Cashmere, where the cost of a really fine shawl ranges from $250 to $500. Some of those which are worked for native princes are altogether too costly for export, being worth several thousand dollars.

1877.

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