Labore

A piece-dyed dress fabric made from cashmere in small dobby effects.

Lace

A fine open work fabric with a ground of mesh or net on which patterns may be worked at the same time as the ground is formed or applied later, and which is made of yam by looping, twisting, or knitting, either by hand with a needle or bobbin, or by machinery; also a similar fabric made by crocheting, tatting, darning, embroidering, weaving, or knitting.

Lace

A braided or woven narrow fabric, flat or tubular, often cut into lengths and tagged for use as shoelaces and corset-laces.
Note: The term lace is used to describe narrow woven fabrics such as carriage lace, hood lace and uniform lace.

Lace furnishing machine

A machine in which threads in brass bobbins borne in carriages, each in an allotted comb space, swing in pendulum fashion between vertical warp and pattern threads in planes at right angles to a warp sheet. The lateral movements of the warp and pattern threads are imparted by guide bars. By the interaction of a jack bar and a jacquard, spring-steel jacks modify the lateral movements of selected warp and pattern threads in accordance with the requirements of the pattern.

Lace quality

A quantitative measure of the rate of take-up (and thus the compactness warp-way) of lace on the machine. Traditional measures are:
(i) Leavers and warp - the number of inches of lace per rack;
(ii) furnishings - the number of full motions in 3 inches of lace;
(iii) bobbinet - the number of meshes per inch vertically.
Note.. The finished quality of lace and net differs from the quality ill the machine state owing to dimensional changes introduced in dressing. The finished quality of plain net is traditionally expressed as the sum of the hole count per inch warp-way and the hole count per inch bobbinway, as shown in the diagram.

Lace Stitch

In this knitting stitch structure loops are transferred from the needles on which they are made to adjacent needles to create a fabric with an open or a raised effect.

Lacet (narrow fabric)

A braided or woven narrow fabric, flat or tubular, often cut into lengths and tagged for use as shoelaces and corset-laces.
Note: The term lace is used to describe narrow woven fabrics such as carriage lace, hood lace and uniform lace.

Lacing (silk)

A weaving lease formed in a loom after entering the warp ends by raising and lowering heald shafts to form two sheets of ends and inserting the transverse lease rods. In particular, the term applies when the sheets of ends formed are dissii-nilar, e.g., in a loom for weaving a five-end (five-shaft) warp satin

Ladder (weft knitting)

The un meshing of successive loops in the wale or wales, usually described as a defect.

Ladder backing, weft-knitted

The reverse side of a rib jacquard fabric having fewer wales than on the face as a result of needles being inactive. Small floats are evident where the needles are absent.

Lag (weaving)

One unit of the pattern chain controlling the operating of a dobby, box-i-notion, or other mechanism.

Laid (cordage)

To twist two or more components about each other to form a helix about the axis of the resulting laid product which may be a strand or rope.
Note: The direction of lay in cordage is described as 'S' or 'Z' (see twist direction).

Laid rope

A rope in which 3 or more strands are twisted to form helixes around the same central axis. (See also ordinary lay.)(sub category of rope)

Laid-In Fabric

A knit fabric in which an effect yarn is tucked in not knitted into the fabric structure. The laid-in yarns are held in position by the knitted yarns.

Laid-in fabric, warp-knitted

A fabric containing one or more series of warp threads held into the ground construction by being trapped between the face loops and the underlaps of the ground construction. The laid-in yarn is connected to the ground construction by an underlap on each wale that it crosses.