Chapter VI: Wilton

WILTON carpeting is similar in manufacture in many respects to Brussels. The loom is practically the same for both fabrics, convertible from one to the other without much difficulty or expense. The preparation of yarns for worsted pile, chain, stuffer, and weft is substantially identical, while most of what has been said with regard to weaving and finishing operations applies no less to Brussels than to Wilton.

The essential differences are two—a major and a minor one. In the first place, the loops of worsted yarns are cut, so that the character of the surface is velvety instead of smooth and ribbed. This is effected by the use of a narrow wire ending in a knife blade, which blade stands outside the fabric when the wire is inserted, but severs the loops of worsted when the wire is withdrawn.

The second difference, which, however, does not apply to all grades of Wilton carpet, is that for the sake of holding down the pile more securely, there are three shots of weft to each row of pile, instead of two. This is effected by an adjustment of the gear and harness motions, in such a way that the lash or shed of worsted selected to form the pattern does not rise alternately with the shed of the chain, but once in every three picks of the shuttle or beats of the sley.

The cutting of the yarn, resulting as it does in exposing to view the ends instead of the sides of the wool fibre, gives a richer and softer surface effect both in appearance and in feel, while the treble weft shot makes a better weave and a firmer fabric. Generally also Wilton carpeting is woven closer, with more rows to the inch, than Brussels, which necessitates, incidentally, the use of thinner wires.

The standard best or Super Wilton carpet is 256 pitch, with a beat-up of 10 to the inch, woven with a wire about 3/16 in. high; a linen weft is used, and a stuffer of bump. Five frames of worsted are generally employed. This is an excellent carpet for dining and drawing rooms, theatres, show rooms, and restaurants, and will wear well. Several better qualities are made, however; and the fabric lends itself readily to fine and luxurious effects. Wires are used occasionally as high as 3/8 in. or more.

Depth of pile, however, is not the highest desideratum in a Wilton carpet; and the most notable development of recent years in the fabric has been in the direction of a fine, closely woven fabric with no excessive wool surface. These fine Wiltons are made 256 pitch, 12 or 13 shots per inch, and are generally 2-shot, with chain, stuffer, and weft of cotton. Neither depth of pile nor weight is aimed at, but fineness and smoothness of surface and artistic effect; and their great popularity in spite of the present high price seems to indicate that they have justified themselves. At the present time most manufacturers of Wilton produce a fine Wilton quality of this nature.

Among the better qualities of Wilton, mention must be made of Saxonies, the name given to Wiltons woven with a heavy, sharply twisted twofold Saxony worsted yarn, which possesses exceptional wearing qualities.

Below Super Wilton come the medium qualities, made in 236 pitch, 10 to the inch, in five, four, and three frames; artistic and serviceable carpets suitable for studies, bed-rooms, and what may be called general use; while they are also in great demand for Cinema theatres.

The cheaper grades of Wilton are made in 214 pitch with three frames or less. Their manufacture has been limited during the war by the restricted supplies of worsted yarn; and even before that time they suffered from the competition of woollen Wiltons, of which mention will be made. The limitation of colours on the one hand, and the comparative poverty of the fabric on the other, restricted the demand to those for whom the question of price was important; and now that price-cutting has passed away in an era of high values and shortage of material, these qualities are out of favour.

Woollen Wiltons, or Wilton fabrics whose pile is made of a sharply twisted woollen yarn, instead of worsted, require special mention. They are of comparatively recent growth, and probably originated in the effort of the Jacquard loom manufacturer to meet the competition of Imperial Axminster, dating from the time when the price of the latter fabric was round about 4s., and woollen yarn was correspondingly cheap. It was necessarily rather an uphill fight for the Jacquard loom, because the Axminster possessed the initial advantages of a greatly superior range of colours, and of greater economy in manufacture owing to the yarn being all on the surface.

The price of woollen Wiltons therefore had to be appreciably lower, and the qualities cut as much as they would stand. Working on this basis, however, the woollen Wiltons did justify their existence. Made mainly in 214 pitch, with three frames of yarn or less, and beaten up from 8½ to 7½ per inch, they achieved unambitious but ingenious and saleable effects, and if the cover and consequent wear was not all that could have been desired, yet they served a purpose.

But it must not be implied that the only woollen Wiltons were, or are, the cheap grades. The suitability of woollen yarn for use in a Wilton loom to produce a soft and even luxurious fabric with an Oriental effect has long been recognised; and admirable qualities have been woven in 256 and 236 pitch with four or five frames of yarn and with fairly high wires. Indeed, some of these can be regarded as more successfully imitating the Eastern carpet in texture than even the finer worsted Wiltons.

Wilton carpeting lends itself particularly well to single shade effects: plain Wiltons have been woven in a variety of qualities with both worsted and woollen yarn for many years; and, indeed, the demand has shown signs of a steady increase. For those who are content with a single colour on the floor in their scheme of furnishing, and who do not object to the sensitiveness of a plain carpet to “shading,” and, indeed, to the recording of individual footprints, no fabric is better than a plain Wilton. But it should be borne in mind that a plain carpet has that defect. Wool fibre is elastic, but not infinitely so. A plain carpet, however well and carefully woven, cannot be expected to retain its virgin smoothness and level colour for long under wear. Wear on a carpet is never evenly distributed: the feet tread down some places more than others; the pile is depressed unequally, with the result that, in a plain carpet, the light, falling at different angles upon the fibres causes light and dark patches to appear. This is called shading, and is often wrongly attributed to defective manufacture, or to the presence of some foreign substance like oil. Shading actually occurs equally in figured Wiltons; but it is rarely the subject of complaint, simply because it is concealed by the design and colours.

Subject to this limitation, then, plain carpets, and plain Wiltons in particular, are all right for those who like them. The manufacturer does not regard them with great enthusiasm, for, though in some respects they are easier to make than figured goods, yet they are exacting if they are to be turned out perfectly. Moreover, they are more subject to competition, and do not afford scope for artistic skill in design and colour combination.

As has been indicated, Wilton carpeting, like Brussels, has, in comparison with some of its competitors, two main limitations; one economic and one artistic. For every square or tuft of yarn showing on the surface, there are, roughly, from two to four parts uneconomically used in the body of the fabric, and the number of shades that can be used to work one over the other to form the pattern is limited to five, or, exceptionally, to six. These limitations, however, are not serious ones; and the Wilton carpet, in its higher grades, is regarded by many as the best of all machine-made carpets. It is certainly the finest; and closeness of texture, broadly speaking, means both finer effects and better wear. The higher grades of Wilton are made, as has been stated, in pitch and beat-up which give from 95 to 123 points to the square inch; so that in the matter both of texture and of delicacy of design, effects can be produced in Wilton which surpass those of any other carpet fabric, with the exception of the finest Persians.