What's the difference between a plain weave and a four harness weaving?

Question

I'm looking for information on suits, and they talk about plain and hour harness stitching. What's that? =/

Answer 1

Plain weave is one type of fabric that can be made on a loom of at least two harnesses, or on a rigid heddle loom, or on a warp weighted loom.  A four harness loom has four frames or harnesses that hold heddles or slotted metal strips or knotted strings through which the warp threaded are threaded and may be raised or lowerd by means of hand or foot treadles to open or close a space or shed to pass the weft threads through.  The more harnesses a particular loom has the more complex a fabric stucture may be woven on it.  A four harness loom can be used to weave plain weave where the first and third harnesss are raised and lowered in opposition to the second and fourth harnesses.  It can also be used to weave twills by raising or lowering only one harness (depends on which overall type of loom is being used, too, whether a shed is raised or lowered to be opened) at a time when weaving.  You can do significantly more complex weaving patterns the more harnesses a loom has.  I have a loom that has 8 harnesses and that can weave more patterns than if I use only two or four harnesses.