The waste from cotton and wool from the mills and after stuffing mattresses. A small tuft of wool hair or cotton is known as a flock (Latin floccus), giving its name to a type of wallpaper covering, in which the surface is ‘flocked’, i.e. covered with tiny lengths of wool or cotton to create a design.
The technique involves sticking these very short ‘flocks’ (textile fibres or fibrils) onto the paper such that they project from the surface and produce a velvety look and feel.