[Northkeep] Linen, wool, and thrones

[Jennifer Carlson]

Having just arisen from the dead after 36+ hour battle with food poisoning, I'm a little late into the conversation.

 

Linen, happily, is no longer a fad.  Once the Berlin Wall came down, Eastern Europe (where it's still the major fiber) finally was able to reach U.S. markets.  Then China, not about to be left out, also started exporting linen to the U.S.  Belgium and Ireland still produce the highest quality linen, as they use traditional rather than chemical retting processes, and are consequently more expensive, but well worth it if you can find (and afford) it.

 

Linen takes abuse like no other fabric.  When it's new, it may be a little scratchy, but it softens with repeated washings.  You can speed up this process by throwing a couple of tennis shoes in the dryer with it.  One laurel on an SCA list I subscribe to wets the fabric, stretches it across her lawn, and has her children run up and down on it for an hour or so.  Old, soft linen feels wonderful, especially for underwear and nightshirts.

 

If you wash your linen garment and hang it up to dry, it will dry stiffly, and its own weight will pull out most of the wrinkles.  This is how I treat mine and Diarmaid's gowns and shirts.  There is a substance in the fiber that reactivates when wet, which sort of self-starches the cloth.

 

When you buy wool, look for the words "Tropical" and "Summer weight."  Remember, well into the 1960s, wool was worn year round.  Central air conditioning and agressive cotton marketing are largely responsible for how we, as a culture, have wimped out about wearing wool except in the winter.  And as time went on and demand dwindled, only the cheapest types of wool filled our fabric stores, and those wools were heavy, scratchy, and limited in color - and was mostly recycled fiber.  This gave people from my generation on the idea that wool was less desireable than other fabrics.  I still mourn the loss of J. Boyer fabrics, where you could buy Italian wools that felt like they were woven on the looms of the angels; but you can get fine quality wools online.

 

Diarmaid spent the day at Ansteorran XXXth, where the temperature was reported at 104F before you factored in the heat index, wearing his brown wool twill Venetians, which are lined with wool, woolen hose, a linen shirt, and the linen jerkin he mentioned, which is of canvas-weight and double thickness.  He found he was acutally cooler if he wore the jerkin buttoned up than open, as it created some sort of convection through the fabric.  Yes, he was warm, but it was 104F degrees. He'd have been warm if he'd been buck-naked.  But he wasn't sweaty, and the linen's ability to wick moisture away from the body and disperse it through more efficient evaporation than cotton can kept him comfortable.

 

Remember, layers can insulate for coolness as well as warmth.

 

 

On bowing to the thrones:  I was taught to do this in my early days, as a respect for the presence of the Crown at at event.  Just as Diarmaid collated it with saluting officers, I assumed it was rather like bowing to the altar whether or not service was going on, because the Divine was present even when the altar was bare.  I was also taught that, for some esoteric reason, it was gauche to bow to the back of the throne.

 

 

Talana

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