seersucker achieved by using the tensioning of two beams.

seersucker cloths

Seersucker materials have a plissé or puckered effect in a vertical direction. The gathered areas are usually off set by a smooth stripe adjacent to it.

There are different ways of producing seersucker.

In the lighter weight dress materials this effect  is often produced by a paste of caustic soda being printed in vertical stripes on the material in its unfinished form. This causes the coated areas to shrink and the untreated areas to pucker because of the difference in take up. One might call this a semi-permanent finish as ironing will diminish the effect and these sort of materials are better drip dried.

A similar result is produced by using fibres with different shrinkage characteristics.  During the final processing, one group of yarns will shrink more than the other, and thus a crinkle effect will be achieved. During the weaving process when weaving a plain ecru material one type of yarn is given a water soluble colour, so that in the event of a warp thread breaking it can be repaired with the correct type of yarn.

For the hand weaver the most interesting way is to achieve the effect is by using two warp beams with different take up tensions. The fine ground warp has to be tight, the puckering warp much slacker. The best results are achieved if an easer bar, a cross bar which relaxes the warp tension intermittently as required.

The multicolour sample above has ribs in the tensioned stripe to add a decorative effect but also to take up the slack.

This weave, (developed together with Karina van Eeten  Kendix team member}, also uses the difference in take up of the warp to produce the three dimensional pleats which appear on both sides of the cloth. A lurex thread in the middle high lights the effect.