Encyclopedia Archive

Vegetable Dye

Dyes derived from insects or from the earth, including dyes made from plants and bark, which includes madder root, indigo, milkweed, pomegranate, Osage, cutch, and cochineal. These also include natural dyes produced from berries, roots, and bark. They are not as colorfast as chrome dyes and produce unusual shades of blue, green and other colors. They contain no synthetic chemicals…

Vegetable-Fiber

The vegetable fibres can be divided into smaller groups based on their origin within the plant. Cotton, kapok, and coir are examples of fibres originating as hairs borne on the seeds or inner walls of the fruit, where each fibre consists of a single, long, narrow cell. Flax, hemp, jute, and ramie are bast fibres, occurring in the inner bast…

Veil

A piece of more or less transparent material made as a thin soft cloth. Veils are made of different materials nylon, silk, polyester, cotton, chiffon, and organza.

Velcro®

Nylon material made with both a surface of tiny hooks and a complementary surface of an adhesive pile, used in matching strips that can be pressed together or pulled apart for easy fastening and unfastening.

Velour

A medium weight, closely woven fabric with a thick pile. It can be made using either a plain weave or a satin weave construction. It resembles velvet but has a lower cut pile. End uses include apparel, upholstery, and drapes.

Velvet

A medium weight cut-pile constructed fabric in which the cut pile stands up very straight. It is woven using two sets of warp yarns; the extra set creates the pile. Velvet, a luxurious fabric, is commonly made with a filament fiber for high luster and smooth hand.

Velveteen

A cotton cut-pile weave fabric, utilizing extra fill yarn construction, with either a twill or a plain weave back. The fabric is woven with two sets of filling yarns; the extra set creates the pile.

Vichy

The weave of this fabric is formed of horizontal bands and vertical bands respectively in a light and strong variants of the same colour.

Vicuna

A very soft, silky wool obtained from a small wild llama (Vicugna vicugna) that is found mainly at high altitudes (12,000 to 17,000 feet) in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. The vicuna produces a fine, downy fleece that is valuable. The straight, silk-like wool is rare. It is generally left undyed in its natural white or cream color. Vicua is used…

Vinyl

Are those man-made fibers spun from polymers or copolymers of substituted vinyl monomers and include vinyon, vinal, vinyon-vinal matrix (polychlal), saran, and polytetrafluoroethylene fibers.