Cambric

Embroidered cutwork on cambric
Morning blouse made of cambric
Corsage made of cambric (1898)

Cambric or batiste is a fine dense cloth.[1] It is a lightweight plain-weave fabric, originally from the commune of Cambrai (in present-day northern France), woven greige (neither bleached nor dyed), then bleached, piece-dyed, and often glazed or calendered. Initially it was made of linen; from the 18th and 19th centuries the term came to apply to cotton fabrics as well.

Chambray is a similar fabric,[2] with a coloured (often blue or grey) warp and white filling; the name "chambray" replaced "cambric" in the United States in the early 19th century.[3]

Cambric is used as fabric for linens, shirts, handkerchiefs, ruffs,[4] lace, and in cutwork and other needlework.[5][6] Dyed black, it is also commonly used as the dustcover on the underside of upholstered furniture.[7]

  1. ^ Sir David Brewster (1814). Second American edition of the new Edinburgh encyclopædia. Published by Samuel Whiting and John L. Tiffany [and others]. pp. 189–190.
  2. ^ Extension of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1944. p. 823. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  3. ^ Bradley, Linda Arthur (2014). Ethnic Dress in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 67–68. ISBN 9780759121508.
  4. ^ Westman, Hab'k O. (1844). Transactions of the Society of Literary & Scientific Chiffoniers. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 58.
  5. ^ Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier; Bernard Berthod; Martine Chavent-Fusaro (1994). Les étoffes: dictionnaire historique (in French). Editions de l'amateur. p. 120. ISBN 9782859171759.
  6. ^ Betzina, Sandra (2004). More Fabric Savvy: A Quick Resource Guide to Selecting and Sewing Fabric. Taunton Press. ISBN 978-1-56158-662-2.
  7. ^ Popular Mechanics. Hearst Magazines. December 1935. p. 935.