Weaves: Brussels

Brussels carpet is a loop-pile fabric, made with a strongly-woven foundation of cotton, linen and/or jute threads, and in addition, has the larger proportion of its worsted yarn buried in its body. From this latter fact it takes the name of body-brussels. Its texture and pattern are formed by the different colored worsted yarns being brought to the surface and caught over slender metal threads, called wires. There are usually nine to eleven wires to the vertical inch of carpet. As the weaving progresses, the wires are withdrawn at certain intervals, leaving a surface of small loops of worsted yarn, of even height, in the various colors forming the design.

Brussels carpet is usually made with either a cotton or linen warp or "chain," a linen weft and worsted pattern warp. The last forms the surface. The standard width of brussels is 27 inches. It was originally woven in the city of Brussels, and the old French and Flemish cloth measure was an ell, with equals 27 inches. The original width has always remained standard for brussels carpet.

The usual good grade of brussels is called "five-frame"; occasionally a still better grade is made in six-frame. Cheaper qualities may be only three or four-frame. The frames are exactly what their name implies, large frames or trays, attached to the back of the loom, to hold the spools of worsted pattern-warp which will form the raised loops in the woven carpet. The usual "pitch" of body brussels is 256 loops across the 27 inch width. Therefore, 256 spools of yard are wound in each of the colors to be woven into the carpet. A five-frame carpet normally, is made with five colors and requires 1,280 spools of yarn, each frame being supplied with its 256 spools of one color. A six-frame carpet will have six colors, with 1,536 spools. A three- or four-frame carpet will have only three or four colors, and require correspondingly fewer spools of yarn. There is a way, however, to weave more than the normal colors into these carpets, and that is done by a system of "planting" extra colors in some frames. These "planted" colors can only alternate with the main color of that frame and must always appear in exactly the same spots, vertically, throughout the length. It takes clever designing to successfully use the system of planting colors. In weaving brussels carpet all give (if five-frame is being made) sets of worsted warp threads are being fed into the fabric at the same time. Only one of these warp threads, however, appears, at a time, on the surface, in the form of a raised loop. The other four are bound into the body of the carpet. Therefore, in a five-frame brussels four-fifths of the worsted is woven into the fabric where is does not show from the surface, and only one-fifth actually forms the loops. This makes an expensive carpet as to the quantity of worsted yarn consumed, but the added amount of worsted gives slendid resistance to wear and good resiliency to the fabric.

 

basic brussels weaving diagram

 

 

5 frame brussels

 

 

3 frame brussels and 3 frame wilton comparison

 

Brussels carpets are woven with the jacquard attachment. This devices has never been changed in any vital way from the original invention of Joseph Marie Charles Jacquard, about 1800 at Lyons, France. It is used in every country for figuring weaving of every kind of fabric. To prepare a design for weaving by the jacquard attachment, cards of correct size must be cut, and perforated with holes according to the design to be reproduced. Thses jacquard cards have some what the appearance of a perforated music roll on a player piano.

For a nine-by-twelve foot rug pattern it will require the time of one person for about six to eight weeks to hand cut approximately 23,000 cards which will be needed for its reproduction by the jacquard machine. By the use of special machines pattern cards which duplicate the originals are made very quickly. The pattern cards are then laced together for use on the loom. In operation, long wires or needles either pass through the holes in the cards, or are stopped by the blank places, thus lifting the strands of worsted required to form the design in raised loops on the surface, and leaving the other strands of worsted to be buried in the body of the carpet.

Today very little brussels is made, as it is not popular at the present time. Cheaper qualities of this carpet, having less than 256 loops across the width and woven partly with jute yard to replace the omitted standard quantity of worsted yarns are known as brussels stouts.