[Sca-cooks] flax processing (was Bread labor)

Saint Phlip phlip at 99main.com
Mon Nov 12 10:00:58 PST 2007


Well, Jadwiga, if you have documentation about using the fiber for
cloth, please send it along. I'm very interested in it as a fabric
that would wear well for my smithing, because if I'm building a
completely period set up for my forge, I might as well get it all
right. Already figured out a design for a loom that will make the all
in one tunics that are appropriate- been studying looms to see how it
actually would have been done ((it's winter, might as well do
something useful now that I'll have the indoor space.)

And, does anybody know how to figure out how much fiber you need for a
given quantity of woven cloth?

On Nov 12, 2007 12:48 PM,  <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> wrote:
> Phlip, I don't know where you found that piece of 'information' but it's
> nonsense. Remember Shakespeare's 'hempen homespuns'? Yeah, people of the
> lower class wore hemp cloth. Markham gives instructions for retting hemp
> along with his instructions for retting flax.
>
> Archaeologically, it's apparently impossible to tell different bast fibers
> from one another without destructive testing, so there's little
> information out there about what is found.
>
> The long length of hemp fibers (circa 15 feet) and their strength appears
> to have been the reason they were used for ropes, etc-- flax fibers are
> much shorter.
>
> Now, it may be true that hemp was used primarily for coarse cloth in
> period because it was harder to process it into the fine fibers for
> high-class clothing.
>
> Or it may just have to do with Western European fashions and ways of
> processing fiber, esp. spinning.
>
> --
> -- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
> jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Priorities:

It's the smith who makes the tools, not the tools which make the smith.

.I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary
notices I have read with pleasure. -Clarence Darrow


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