EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION Published in Accordance with Art
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s\ — iiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii OJII Eur°Pean Patent Office <*S Office europeen des brevets (11) EP 0 889 156 A1 (12) EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION published in accordance with Art. 158(3) EPC (43) Date of publication: (51) int. CI.6: D06L 1/00, C12S 11/00, 07.01.1999 Bulletin 1999/01 D06p 3/24 D06p 5/02 (21) Application number: 96909363.2 D06B 3/04 (22) Date of filing: 12.04.1996 (86) International application number: PCT/JP96/01019 (87) International publication number: WO 97/31147 (28.08.1997 Gazette 1997/37) (84) Designated Contracting States: (72) Inventor: KANEHISA, Keiichiro AT BE CH DE DK ES Fl FR GB GR IE IT LI LU MC Takeno-gun, Kyoto-hu 627-01 (JP) NL PT SE (74) Representative: (30) Priority: 23.02.1996 JP 61825/96 von Samson-Himmelstjerna, Friedrich R., Dipl. - Phys. et al (71) Applicants: SAMSON & PARTNER • Kanehisa Inc. Widenmayerstrasse 5 Takeno-gun, Kyoto-hu 627-01 (JP) 80538 Munchen (DE) • Sumitomo Corporation Osaka-shi, Osaka 540-8666 (JP) (54) PROCESS FOR PRODUCING WOVEN OR KNITTED FABRIC FROM YARN-DYED RAW SILK AND WOVEN OR KNITTED FABRIC THUS PRODUCED (57) A process for producing woven or knitted fab- rics having an improved fastness, high qualities, and the Fig. 1 width as large as 150 cm from yarn-dyed raw silk while (a) evading possible occurrence of defects caused by piece dyeing, such as shading, friction marks, creases or bending. The process comprises the step (3) of union dyeing of sericin which surrounds the silk and fibroin which is contained within the silk, the steps (4 and 5) of preparing yarn-dyed raw silk by doubling the dyed silk fibers followed by twisting, the step (6) of producing fab- ric by weaving or knitting the yarn-dyed raw silk, the step (7) of swelling the raw silk constituting the fabric in a hot-water bath, and the step (8) of enzymatic degum- ming by treating the fabric with an enzyme capable of hydrolyzing the sericin of the swollen yarn-dyed raw silk. Printed by Xerox (UK) Business Services 2.16.7/3.6 EP 0 889 156 A1 Description BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 5 Technical Field The present invention relates to a process for manufacturing woven or knit fabrics using yarn dyed raw silk and the woven or knit fabrics manufactured by the same process. Related Art 10 Prior art yarn dyed silk woven fabrics have been manufactured from silk in which sericin or silk glue (about 25% of the total weight of raw silk) which covers the periphery of the raw silkf ibers is removed and thereafter only fibroin is dyed (the same may be applied to the knit silk fabrics). In order to twist yarn hard after sericin has been removed, it is generally carried out after conducting shrink proofing 15 and twist setting for the silk yarns by using starch. However, manufacturing a great quantity of silk fabrics for Japanese and Western clothes by this manufacturing process has encountered processing problems and is expensive due to the cost of yarn twisting or fabric manufacturing. Thus, the fabrics manufactured by this process have been used in only a restricted field of high grade Japanese clothes, such as kimono. Such a traditional technology has a tendency to decline with the time due to problem in technical successors. 20 Due to these problems, few yarn dyed, hard twisted silk fabrics have been used. Piece dyed woven or knit fabrics have been predominantly used in silk fabrics. There is a restriction that shrink-proofing and twist setting of silk yarns can not be achieved unless almost 100 % sericin is left in order to manufacture the fabrics using both wefts and warps of hard twisted yarns. Under this condition, the piece dyed fabrics are manufactured by following the steps as follows: (1) manufacturing of raw silk; (2) soaking and drying; (3) winding ; (4) first twisting; (5) doubling and twisting: (6) final 25 twisting and twist setting; (7) weaving or knitting; (8) scouring (degumming) at a plant; (9) dyeing; (10) product. The scouring at the plant is conducted at five steps as follows: 30 1 . Preliminary scouring (alkali scouring) 98°C, 320 minutes (5 hours 20 minutes) 2. Main scouring (alkali scouring) 98°C, 600 minutes (10 hours) 3. Finishing scouring (alkali scouring) 98°C, 60 minutes (one hour) 4. Drying finishing 3s 5. Tentering, softening finishing It takes an extended time. In order to shorten the period of time taken for preliminary and main scouring steps, a 40 high pressure scouring may be conducted. Since the fabrics are dyed after removal of sericin to produce the piece dyed fabrics, the finished fabrics have various problems which will be described hereafter. These problems occur due to the dyeing method which is adopted to conduct the piece dyeing method. A prior art method of dyeing 1 00% silk fabrics having a large width will be briefly described with reference to Fig. 1 . The prior art method which has previously been adopted as a method of dyeing fabrics having a large width is referred to as "sus- 45 pend dyeing". An elongated and wide fabric 1 4 which is disposed in serpentine or spiral manner as shown in Figs. 1 (b) and 1(c), respectively is suspended from parallel, or radial bars 10 with threads 12 In a predetermined interval so that it is dipped into hot water and dye 16 in a dyeing tub 18 as shown in Fig. 1(a). A first problem of the piece dyed fabric resides in that the upper side of the fabric 1 4 to which threads 1 2 are bound is dyed to a color different from that of the lower side thereof if the fabric 1 4 has a width of about 1 1 4 cm or more. The so condition of the dyed fabric 14 is schematically illustrated in Fig. 2. The fabric 14 is actually extended in a transverse direction in Fig. 2. The upper portion 14a (from the upper side 14c of the fabric 14 to about 1 14 cm lower position) is dyed to a specified color although the lower portion 1 4b (from the about 1 1 4 cm position to the lower side 1 4d of the fabric 14) generally exhibits dense and light fading colors. It is estimated that this is due to the fact that the temperature of the hot water and mixing ratio of the dye 16 in the vicinity of the surface level in the tub 18 is delicately different from 55 that in the vicinity of its bottom. A second problem of the piece dyed fabrics is that defects such as creases, tub marks, and wrinkles may occur on the surface of the fabric 14. Since the fabric 14 is moved up and down and the water and dye 16 is heated with steam to about 100°C during the dyeing process, the fabric 14 that is suspended only through threads 12 could be waved or 2 EP 0 889 156 A1 the lower side 1 4d of the fabric 1 4 could be rolled up so that the above-mentioned defects occur. It is obvious that a tub mark 15a is formed in the vicinity of the center of the fabric 14, a wrinkle 15b is formed in the vicinity of a position to which a thread 12 is attached and a crease 15c is formed in the vicinity of the lower side 14d which is liable to be rolled up. 5 A third problem of the piece dyed fabrics is that creases 15d and wrinkles 15e occur in the vicinity of upper and lower sides 14c ,14d of the fabric 14 when the fabric 14 has a width of 1 14 cm or more (refer to Fig. 4). This is due to the fact that the center of the fabric 1 4 is loosened by the weight of the fabric and the water contained therein as repre- sented by a two-dot-and-chain line in Fig. 4(a) since tentering to the fabric 14 is conducted in a wet condition during finishing treatment. If the loosened fabric 1 4 is tensioned as represented by a solid line in Fig. 4(a), an inward force acts 10 against the outward tension so that the fabric 14 is not balanced. Thus, the creases 15d and 15e wrinkles may occur as shown in Fig. 4(b). Due to the above-mentioned problems of the piece dyed fabrics, it has previously been very hard to piece-dye the silk fabric having a width of 150 cm. Accordingly, fabrics of a high yield rate having a width of 96 to 1 14 cm have been mainly manufactured so that defects such as crease, tub marks, wrinkles can be eliminated. 15 However, there have been demands for silk fabrics having a width of 150 cm for various reasons which will be described hereafter. Development for silk fabrics having a large width has been demanded. A first reason why silk fabrics having a width of 1 50 cm are demanded is that a great cutting loss occurs if, for exam- ple, a double-breasted suit is produced from a piece dyed silk fabric having a width of 96 to 114 cm. The Japanese apparel sewing systems are currently on the top level in the world and are adapted to 1 50 cm width cloth. A great cutting 20 loss of fabric occurs if one double-breasted suit is made from a fabric having a width of 96 to 1 1 4 cm.