Fibre to Fabric P - NCERT

1 18 SCIENCE3 Fibre to FabricFig. A cloth Enlarged viewof a piece of fabricPaheli and Boojho won the firstprize in a Science Quizcompetition held at their were very excited and decided touse the prize money to buy clothes fortheir parents. When they saw a largevariety of cloth material, they gotconfused (Fig. ). The shopkeeperexplained that some clothes or fabricswere cotton and some were also had woollen mufflers andshawls. There were many silk sarees aswell. Paheli and Boojho felt very touched and felt these differentfabrics. Finally, they bought a woollenmuffler and a cotton their visit to the cloth shop,Paheli and Boojho began to noticevarious fabrics in their found that bed sheets, blankets,curtains, tablecloths, towels anddusters were made from different kindsof fabrics. Even their school bags andthe gunny bags were made fromsome kind of Fabric .

2 They tried toidentify these fabrics as cotton , wool,silk or synthetic. Can you also identifysome fabrics? VARIETY IN FABRICSA ctivity 1 Visit a nearby tailoring cuttings offabrics leftover afterstitching. Feel andtouch each pieceof Fabric . Now,try to label someof the fabrics ascotton, silk, woolor synthetic afterasking for help from the you wonder what these differentfabrics are made of? When you look atany Fabric , it seems a continuous , look at it closely. What do younotice (Fig. )?Activity 2 Select a piece of cotton Fabric youlabelled in Activity 1. Now, try to find aloose thread or yarn at one of the edgesand pull it out (Fig. ). If no loose2021 2219 Fibre TO FABRICFig. Pulling a thread from a Splitting the yarn into thin strandsFig. Yarn split up into thin strandsyarns are visible, you can gently pullone out with a pin or a find that a Fabric is made up ofyarns arranged together.

3 What are theseyarns made of? FIBREA ctivity 3 Take out a yarn from a piece of cottonfabric. Place this piece of yarn on thetable. Now, press one end of the yarnwith your thumb. Scratch the other endof the yarn along its length with yournail as shown in Fig. Do you findthat at this end, the yarn splits up intothin strands (Fig. )?You might have observed somethingsimilar when you try to thread aneedle. Many a time, the end of thethread is separated into a few thinstrands. This makes it difficult to passthe thread through the eye of theneedle. The thin strands of thread thatwe see, are made up of still thinnerstrands called are made up of yarns andyarns are further made up of do these fibres come from?The fibres of some fabrics such ascotton, jute, silk and wool are obtainedfrom plants and animals. These arecalled natural fibres.

4 cotton and juteare examples of fibres obtained fromplants. Wool and silk fibres are obtainedfrom animals. Wool is obtained from thefleece of sheep or goat. It is also obtainedfrom the hair of rabbits, yak andcamels. Silk Fibre is drawn from thecocoon of thousands of years natural fibreswere the only ones available for makingfabrics. In the last hundred years or so,fibres are also made from chemicalBoojho has seen in themuseums, items like theone shown here. Thesewere worn by warriors. Hewants to know if theseare made of somekinds of 2220 SCIENCE substances, which are not obtainedfrom plant or animal sources. These arecalled synthetic fibres. Some examplesof synthetic fibres are polyester, nylonand SOME PLANT FIBRESC ottonHave you ever made wicks for oil lamps?What do you use for making thesewicks? This cotton wool is also used forfilling mattresses, quilts or some cotton wool, pull it apartand look at its edges.

5 What do youobserve? The small, thin strands thatyou see are made up of cotton does this cotton wool comefrom? It is grown in the fields. Cottonplants are usually grown at placeshaving black soil and warm climate. Canyou name some states of our countrywhere cotton is grown? The fruits of thecotton plant ( cotton bolls) are about thesize of a lemon. After maturing, the bollsburst open and the seeds covered withcotton fibres can be seen. Have you everJuteJute Fibre is obtained from the stem ofthe jute plant (Fig ). It is cultivatedduring the rainy season. In India, jute ismainly grown inWest Bengal, Biharand Assam. Thejute plant isnormally harvestedwhen it is atflowering stems of theharvested plantsare immersed inwater for a fewdays. The stems rotand fibres areseparated by Field of cotton plantsFig. Ginning of cottonseen a cotton field that is ready forpicking?

6 It looks like a field covered withsnow ( ).From these bolls, cotton is usuallypicked by hand. Fibres are thenseparated from the seeds by process is called ginning of was traditionally done by hand( ). These days, machines are alsoused for A jute plant2021 2221 Fibre TO FABRICFig. TakliFig. CharkhaTo make fabrics, all these fibres arefirst converted into yarns. How isit done? SPINNING cotton YARNYou can try making cotton yarn 4 Hold some cotton wool in one some cotton between thethumb and forefinger of the other , gently start pulling out the cotton ,while continuously twisting the fibres(Fig. ). Are you able tomake a yarn?The process of making yarnfrom fibres is called this process, fibres from amass of cotton wool are drawnout and twisted. This bringsthe fibres together to forma simple device usedfor spinning is a handspindle, also called takli(Fig.)

7 Another handoperated device used forspinning is charkha(Fig. ). Use of charkha waspopularised by MahatmaGandhi as part of theIndependence movement. Heencouraged people to wearclothes made of homespun yarn termedas khadi and shun imported cloth madein the mills of Britain. To popularise andpromote khadi, the Government of Indiaconstituted a body called Khadi andVillage Industries Commission in of yarn on a large scale isdone with the help of spinningmachines. After spinning, yarns areused for making YARN TO FABRICT here are many ways by which fabricsare made from yarns. The two mainprocesses are weaving and Activity 2, you might have noticedthat a Fabric is made up of two sets ofyarns arranged together. The process ofarranging two sets of yarns together tomake a Fabric is called weaving. Let ustry to weave some paper 5 Take two sheets of paper of differentcolours.

8 Cut square pieces of length andwidth equal to 30 cm from each , fold both the sheets into half. Onone sheet draw lines as shown in theFig. Making yarn from cotton2021 2222 SCIENCEFig. HandloomFig. Weaving with paper strips(a)(c)(d)Fig KnittingFig (a) and on the other as shownin (b). Cut both the sheetsalong the dotted lines and then the strips one by one through thecuts in the sheet of paper as shown (c). Fig. (d) shows thepattern after weaving all the a similar manner, two sets of yarnare woven to make a Fabric . The yarnsare much thinner than our paper strips,of course! Weaving of Fabric is done onlooms (Fig. ). The looms are eitherhand operated or power you noticed how sweaters areknitted? In knitting, a single yarn isused to make a piece of Fabric (Fig. ).Have you ever pulled the yarn from atorn pair of socks? What happens? Asingle yarn gets pulled out continuouslyas the Fabric gets unravelled.

9 Socks andmany other clothing items are made ofknitted fabrics. Knitting is done byhand and also on wants to know if you haveseen any fabrics that are madeof the fibres on the outer coveringof coconut. What are thesefibres normally used for?(b)2021 2223 Fibre TO FABRICW eaving and knitting are used formaking different kinds of fabrics are used for a variety ofclothing HISTORY OF CLOTHING MATERIALHave you ever wondered what materialspeople used in ancient times for clothes?It appears that in those times peopleused the bark and big leaves of trees oranimal skins and furs to people began to settle inagricultural communities, they learnt toweave twigs and grass into mats andbaskets. Vines, animal fleece or hair weretwisted together into long strands. Thesewere woven into fabrics. The early Indianswore fabrics made out of cotton that grewin the regions near the river Ganga.

10 Flaxis also a plant that gives natural ancient Egypt, cotton as well as flaxwere cultivated near the river Nile andwere used for making those days, stitching was notknown. People simply draped the fabricsaround different parts of their different ways of draping fabricswere used. With the invention of thesewing needle, people started stitchingfabrics to make clothes. Stitched clotheshave gone through many variationssince this invention. But, is it notamazing that even today saree, dhoti,lungi or turban is used as an un-stitchedpiece of Fabric ?Just as there is a large variety in thefood eaten all over our country, a largevariety exists also in fabrics andclothing is a variety of clothing material or Fabric , such as, cotton , silk,wool and Rolls Fibre YarnGinningSpinningKnittingWeaving2021 the following fibres as natural or synthetic:nylon, wool, cotton , silk, polyester, whether the following statements are true or false:a)Yarn is made from )Spinning is a process of making )Jute is the outer covering of )The process of removing seed from cotton is called )Weaving of yarn makes a piece of )Silk Fibre is obtained from the stem of a )Polyester is a natural in the blanks:a)Plant fibres are obtained from_____ and _____.