1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Diaper

DIAPER (derived through the Fr, from the Gr. διά, through, and ἄσπρος, white; the derivation from the town of Ypres, “d’Ypres,” in Belgium is unhistorical, as diapers were known for centuries before its existence), the name given to a textile fabric, formerly of a rich and costly nature with embroidered ornament, but now of linen or cotton, with a simple woven pattern; and particularly restricted to small napkins. In architecture, the term “diaper” is given to any small pattern of a conventional nature repeated continuously and uniformly over a surface; the designs may be purely geometrical, or based on floral forms, and in early examples were regulated by the process of their textile origin. Subsequently, similar patterns were employed in the middle ages for the surface decoration of stone, as in Westminster Abbey and Bayeux cathedral in the spandrils of the arcades of the choir and nave; also in mural painting, stained glass, incised brasses, encaustic tiles, &c. Probably in most cases the pattern was copied, so far as the general design is concerned, from the tissues and stuffs of Byzantine manufacture, which came over to Europe and were highly prized as ecclesiastical vestments.

In its textile use, the term diaper was originally applied to silk patterns of a geometrical pattern; it is now almost exclusively used for diamond patterns made from linen or cotton yarns. An illustration of two patterns of this nature is shown in the figure. The floats of the warp and the weft are mostly in three; indeed the patterns are made from a base weave which is composed entirely of floats of this number. It will be seen that both designs are formed of what may be termed concentric figures—alternately black and white. Pattern B differs from pattern A only in that more of these concentric figures are used for the complete figure. If pattern B, which shows only one unit, were extended, the effect would be similar to A, except for the size of the unit. In A there are four complete units, and hence the pattern appears more striking. Again, the repeating of B would cause the four corner pieces to join and to form a diamond similar to the one in the centre. The two diamonds in B would then alternate diagonally to left and right. Special names are given to certain kinds of diapers, e.g. “bird’s-eye,” “pheasant’s-eye”; these terms indicate, to a certain extent, the size of the complete diamond in the cloth—the smaller kind taking the name “bird’s-eye.” The size of the pattern on paper has little connexion with the size of the pattern in the cloth, for it is clearly the number of threads and picks per inch which determine the size of the pattern in the cloth from any given design. Although A is larger than what is usually termed the “bird’s-eye” pattern, it is evident that it may be made to appear as such, provided that the cloth is fine enough. These designs, although adapted mostly for cloths such as nursery-diapers, for pinafores, &c., are sometimes used in the production of towels and table-cloths. In the figure, the first pick in A is identical with the first pick in B, and the part C shows how each interweaves with the twenty-four threads.