How to make Jacquard ribbons

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  Yarn

  Yarn can be broadly divided into long fibers (e.g., silk) and short fibers (e.g., cotton). Eight Ribbon handles both types of yarn and always has skeins of them on hand. The warp of a textile is written as "tateito" in kanji characters, and the weft is written as "yokoito". It is the same as "longitude and latitude" used in maps!
  
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  Dyeing

  The process of adding color to a skein of yarn by soaking it in dye. Many of the yarns handled by Eight Ribbon are dyed at a dyeing shop near the factory.
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  Spinning

  The dyed yarn comes back from the dyeing shop in a skein. The process of unwinding the skein and rewinding it onto a bobbin is called "itokuri" (spinning). In other textile production areas, it is also called "kasekuri" or "kurikaeshi". It is interesting that textile terminology differs from one region to another!
  
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  Winding

  Winding a string around a cone-shaped paper tube is called a "cone roll". Winding is the name of the process of making these cone rolls. In addition to cone rolls, there are "cheese rolls" that resemble the shape of whole cheese (cylindrical). I don't know why it's always compared to food....
  
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  Warping

  This is the process of preparing thousands of warp yarns so that they can be placed on a loom. The warp threads that have been cone-wound are laid out according to the blueprint and wound on the warping machine. The "taiko," a waterwheel-like structure that spins in a circle, is 4.2 meters in circumference! In the Maruoka production area, it is called a "hammock warping machine".
  
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  Patterned paper

  Patterned paper is a kind of patterned paper needed to weave ribbons. Holes are drilled to indicate the top and bottom of the warp threads, which are then set on the "Jacquard loom". About 100 to 1,000 sheets of patterned papers are needed to weave one ribbon. The Jacquard loom was invented by French inventor Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1806. In Japan, it was introduced to Kyoto (Nishijin) in 1873 (Meiji era) and spread throughout the country.
  
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  Kudamaki (pirn winding)

  The process of winding the weft onto a small bobbin called a "kuda" (tube). When one tube is finished winding, the system automatically replaces the tube, cuts the thread, and winds the thread again on the next tube. The threads that protrude from the tube rolls are called "tails". Funny conversations like, "Did you cut the tail off?", "There's still a tail left," can be heard throughout the factory.
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  Warp tying

  In this process, the old warp threads on the loom are tied together by hand with the new warp threads that have been newly adjusted. In order to make sure that the connecting threads are not mistaken, a system called "azetake" is used to separate the threads so that the order of the threads can be determined. It is an important process that must never go wrong! By the way, "aze" means "ridge" as in "aze-michi" (ridge between rice fields).
  
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  Weaving

  The warp and weft are hung on a loom, and a "shuttle" with the weft between the warp and the weft moves back and forth to weave the ribbon. The warp threads are manipulated by the patterned paper and Jacquard loom to create the pattern by making different movements each time. The word "shuttle" is used to describe a round trip to the same place, as in "shuttle bus" or "shuttle run".
  
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  Finishing

  This is the process of eliminating weaving defects and measuring lengths. It is also called "hata repair" because it is used to clean up various defects that inevitably occur during the manufacturing process, such as thread breakage, stains, and lifting. Hata = textile. We used to call the room for the finishing process the Dressing Room because it cleans the ribbons.

　First of all, "dobby loom" and "Jacquard loom" are typical machines for weaving patterns. Dobby looms cannot weave very large patterns, and large or complex patterns are mostly made on Jacquard looms.
　So why is it possible to create complex patterns on a Jacquard loom?
A Jacquard loom is a machine that weaves fabric using "patterned paper" (= punch cards). Each warp thread can be moved separately according to the instructions on the patterned paper, making it possible to weave complex patterns. Eight Ribbon's Jacquard looms also include an electronic Jacquard loom that does not use patterned paper..

Trivia: Patterned fabrics woven on a Jacquard loom are now called "Jacquard pattern" or "Jacquard" because of their distinctive patterned weave. Therefore, the term "Jacquard knitting" has come to be used for knit fabrics as well, although it was originally a term for woven fabrics.

Source: Nissenken Quality Evaluation Center