[Steppes] rough cloth similar to flour sack cloth

[alkudsi at aol.com]

Although I agree with Amra on many of his points, I would think that the closest modern equivalent to sacking is muslin. You can get it in unbleached or bleached, and in a variety of weights. From the sounds of it, what you need is a medium weight, which makes good shirting. If you are doing pants, I'd go with the heavier weight.? I've done lots of mid to late 1800's costumes using muslin. Burlap, used for a lot of seeds and feeds is a bit too loosely woven to really be good for finely ground flour, so I think that there is a strong case for muslin for flour sacks. Besides, as Amra said, most of what you can get is pretty scratchy unless you wash it dozen's of times or tumble wash it with pebbles (pretty time consuming). "Natural color" is also a sort of misnomer...cotton is by nature a sort of eggshell white, but a lot of the treatments it goes through can give it a sort of yellowish tinge which is what is called "unbleached" or "natural", where the "bleached" color is probably closer to what you would get if you spun cotton then wove it. And some depends on the varietal of the cotton plant being raised. Egyptian cotton, or cottons from the Middle East, which is argueably the origin of many varieties of cotton plant, produces a fairly white thread.

HL Saqra


-----Original Message-----
From: terry l. ridder <terrylr at blauedonau.com>
To: Barony of Steppes - SCA Inc. <steppes at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 8:30 am
Subject: [Steppes] rough cloth similar to flour sack cloth



hello;

would anyone have any leads on the rough natural color 
cotton cloth that was used for flour sacks years ago?
i have a requirement for several period costumes made
from 'flour sack cloth'.

-- 
terry l. ridder ><>
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