Q1.
Look at a piece of cloth through a magnifying glass or by using zoom on a mobile phone camera. It could be a shirt or something you are wearing. Can you see the amazing criss-cross pattern?
Answer
Yes. You will see rows of threads going one way and rows going across them, passing over and under each other — exactly like the paper mat you wove in Activity 1, only much, much smaller.
How to do it:
- Choose a plain, light-coloured cloth. A cotton shirt or a handkerchief is best.
- Stretch it flat and hold it in good light — near a window is ideal.
- Hold the magnifying glass a little above the cloth. Move it slowly up and down until the picture becomes sharp.
- If you are using a phone, put the camera close and zoom in slowly.
- Now look for two things: threads going up and down, and threads going across.
| What I looked at | What I saw through the magnifying glass |
|---|---|
| Plain cotton shirt | A neat criss-cross grid, like a tiny chess board. Tiny squares of thread, all the same size. |
| A thick towel | The criss-cross is there, but with soft loops standing up all over it. |
| A woollen sweater | Not squares — rows of little loops joined into one another. A sweater is knitted, not woven. |
| A jute or gunny bag | The threads are so thick you can see the over-under pattern without any glass. |
| A cut edge of the cloth | Loose threads hang out — proof that the cloth is made of separate threads. |
Why the pattern is so hard to see: The threads in cloth are very thin — much thinner than the paper strips you used. A magnifying glass makes them look bigger, and then the truth is plain: cloth is not one solid sheet at all. It is hundreds of separate threads holding one another in place.
Check it yourself: Pull one thread out from the cut edge of an old piece of cloth. The cloth stays whole, but a thin line appears where that thread used to be. Now you can see clearly where each thread was sitting.