Aircraft fabric covering often used in the restoration of older types that were originally covered using traditional methods. The purposes of the fabric covering of an aircraft are: Pioneering aviators such as George Cayley and Otto Lilienthal used cotton-covered flying surfaces for their manned glider designs. The Wright brothers also used cotton to cover their Wright Flyer. Other early aircraft used a variety of fabrics, silk and linen being commonly used. Some early aircraft, such as A.V. Roe's first machines, even used paper as a covering material. Until the development of cellulose based dope in 1911 a variety of methods of finishing the
Knitted fabric edges are known as the "selvages"; the word derives from "self-edges", meaning that the stitches do not need to be secured by anything else. Many types of selvages have been developed, with different elastic and ornamental properties. Edges are introduced within a knitted fabric for button holes, pockets, or decoration, by binding/casting off and re-casting on again (horizontal) or by knitting the fabrics on either side of an edge separately. Two knitted fabrics can be joined by embroidery-based grafting methods, most commonly the Kitchener stitch. New wales can be begun from any of the edges of a knitted fabric; this