Chapter – 3

class - vi
FIBRE TO
FABRIC
 INTRODUCTION
Do you know the meaning of the terms fiber and
fabric? In our daily life we use different types of
dresses. Boys usually wear shirt and pants and
girls usually wear churidar and shawl.
So what is fabric, it is nothing but cloth.
Do you know from what, where and how these
dresses are made? In this chapter we are going
to learn about definition of fiber, fabric, yarn
then about different types of fibers, different
sources of fibers, methods of making fabrics
from fibers and at last about the history of
clothing materials.
The fabrics are used for making dress items like
school uniforms, shirts, bedsheets, table cloth,
sarees etc.
Different coloured fabrics are available in the market
other items made of fabrics are socks, ribbon,
school bags, gunny bags etc. Now a days the
commonly used fabrics are :-
1.Cotton fabrics
2.Woollen fabrics
3.Silk fabrics
4. Synthetic fabrics
Depending upon the season or climatic conditions
we use cloths made of suitable fabrics
 ACTIVITY-1
Visit a tailoring shop and collect different
pieces of fabrics and sort out into different
When you look at any fabric, it seems a
continuous piece. If however, we look at a
piece of a fabric closely ( or through a
magnifying glass) we will find that a fabric is
made of loose thread or yarn. So a fabric is
made of thread or yarn. Yarn makes a fabric.
 ACTIVITY-2
Take a piece of cotton towel and pull out a yarn from
one of the edges of the fabric. Then we can go on
pulling more and more yarns from the piece of
cotton fabric. From this activity we can conclude that
the whole piece of cotton fabric can be pulled out
into a number of pieces of yarns, this shows that
piece of cotton is made of yarns. A Fabric is made up
of yarns woven together.
 ACTIVITY-3
Take out a yarn of wool. Place this piece of yarn on the
table. Now press one end of the yarn with the left hand
and scratch the other end of the yarn along its length
with the nail of right hand thumb. We will find that the
piece of woollen yarn splits into thin strands of wool.
These thin strands of wool which make up the yarn are
called woollen fibres. From this we can summarise that
woollen fabric is made of woollen yarn and yarn is made
from woollen fibres.
Fibres -----Yarn-----Fabric(cloth)
So, the essential material for fabrics is fibre.
Where do these fibres come
from?
Fabrics are made up of yarns
and yarns are further made up
of fibres.
Classification of Fibres

• Fibres are of two type

(1.)Natural Fibres
(2.) Artificial Fibres
 NATURAL FIBRES
 The fibres of some fabrics such as,
cotton, jute, silk and wool are
obtained from plants and animals.
These are called natural fibres.
 Cotton and jute are examples of
fibres obtained from plants.

 Wool and silk fibres are obtained from

animals.
 SYNTHETIC FIBRES

 Fibres are also made from chemical

substances , which are not obtained
from plant or animal sources. These
are called synthetic fibres.

 Some examples of synthetic fibres

are polyester, nylon and acrylic.
 COTTON
Cotton fibre is obtained from the fruits of the
cotton plants. Fruits of cotton Plants are called
cotton bolls.
After maturation, the cotton bolls burst open
to produce cotton seeds covered with fibres.
The process of separating cotton fibres from
the seeds is called ginning. It is done by using
a comb like device. Now a days it is also done
by machine.
 COTTON
COTTON BOLLS

COTTON PLANT GINNING

 SPINNING COTTON YARN
The process of making yarn from fibres is
called spinning. In this process, fibres from
a mass of cotton wool are drawn out and
twisted. This brings the fibres together to
form a yarn.
A simple device used for spinning is charkha.
SPINNING COTTON YARN
 Jute
 Jute fibre is obtained from the stem of the
jute plant.
 The stems of the harvested plants are
immersed in water for a few days. The stems
rot and fibres are separated by hand.
 YARN TO FABRIC
There are mainly two methods to make fabrics
from yarns. They are : weaving and knitting
 WEAVING
The process of arranging two sets of yarns together
make a fabric is called weaving.
 WEAVING
The device used for weaving is looms. Looms are of
two types they are , hand looms and power looms .
 KNITTING
In knitting, a single yarn is used to make a
piece of fabric.
HISTORY OF CLOTHING MATERIAL.
• These days we use clothes made of various types of fabrics to cover our
bodies .
• No fabrics were available in ancient time.
• When people began to practice agriculture and settled at places near the
sources of water, they learnt to weave twigs and grass to make mats and
baskets.
• After that very thin stems of climbing plants and animal fleece were
twisted together to form long strands. These strands were then woven
into fabrics.
• Ultimately people started growing cotton and flax plants to obtain fibres
to make fabrics. Afterwards the invention of stitching machine has
changed the field of textile industry.
ANCIENT DRESSING MODERN DRESSING
THANK YOU