Some of the terms on this site may be unfamiliar to our readers. Here’s a glossary of terms to help you get the most out of your visit here.
artifact : any object, document, picture with some historical significance, housed in the museum
ends : (usually plural) see warp
filling : see weft
Hopedale : refers to either the town of Hopedale, its residents as a group, or the geographic territory encompassed by the current town borders
Hopedale Community : when capitalized, refers to the original, Utopian experiment begun by Adin Ballou and his followers in 1842
knit : the act of producing a textile by looping a single thread around itself over and over again; Most T-shirts, for example are made of knit fabric.
loom : a machine designed to aid in weaving textiles; Looms can vary from simple, hand looms to complex, powered, automatic looms.
pick : see weft; can also refer to the event of the shuttle passing through the warp, depositing the weft (first pick, second pick, etc.)
shuttle : on a loom, a device that passes back and forth among the warp threads, carrying the weft thread from one side to the other
textile : cloth or fabric, especially of the woven or knitted varieties.
warp : on a loom, the many parallel threads that are bound together by the weft; also called the ends.
weave : the act of producing a textile by passing one or more weft threads back and forth through many parallel warp threads; denim, for example, is a woven fabric.
weft : on a loom, the thread that passes back and forth, usually by means of a shuttle, to bind together the warp threads; also called filling, or picks.