Because the floats are easily snagged, the back of a jacquard fabric must be lined or hidden. The front shows the design in crisp detail, but the back is covered with long 'floats.' These floats are yarns that were carried on the back of the fabric whenever they were not needed to form the design. Jacquard fabrics have a distinct front and backside. In a reversal of fortune, Jacquard looms now use computers instead of cards to keep track of the pattern. In fact, the punch cards used by early computers were based on the Jacquard system. Until the invention of computers, Jacquard looms were the most complicated pieces of machinery in the world. He also used a series of metal punch cards that could tell the loom the order and number of heddles to lift, replacing the need for a human assistant. Joseph-Marie Jacquard modified the draw loom by replacing harnesses with individual heddles attached to small weights. These are frames with 'heddles' that hold one or more yarns in place. An assistant sits at the side of the loom and lifts combinations of dozens (or even hundreds) of harnesses. The weaver sits at the front of the loom, adds the filling yarns, and beats them in place. Before that time, figure weaves could only be made by more labor-intensive techniques such as tapestry, adding extra yarns to the surface of another weaving by hand (supplementary weft), using different sizes of yarns to make parts of the pattern stand out (dobby weaving), or by using a draw loom.ĭraw looms were invented more than two thousand years ago in China and are operated by two people. This is done on a Jacquard loom, a device invented in Lyons, France by Joseph-Marie Charles Jacquard in the early 1800s. Jacquard is a style of 'figure weaving.' It can be used to create elaborate designs and detailed images of objects such as flowers and birds.

Jacquard weaving software