I'm current reading The identification of Lace by Pat Earnshaw and there is a section that is really bugging me. Is this right?
Embroidered Laces -Cutwork...The linen was handspun and handwove. It's handspun nature is identifiable by the frequent joins in the thread since only short lengths could be spun at a time and each join was makred by a slight lumpiness. Before the mid sixteenth century only a distaff existed, but then a form of spinning wheel with the wheel turned by a foot treadle, so that it left both hands free, was invented. In spite of later improvements to the spinning wheel, no truly mechanical spinning of linen was possible until 1825, and even then the threads were relatively coarse. Pg 25
I've been hearing most of my SCA "life" that slubbiness is not a preferred quality in fabric and that the quality of spinning/weaving in period is much better than common expectation. To the point that raw silk is frequently held up as being improper since people who could afford to have silk imported would not have paid for that poor a quality. So reading this strikes me as "typical mundane person assuming that things can only be done well with technology". On the other hand this is a lace scholar who has a very good reputation so in theory should know what she's talking about.
Embroidered Laces -Cutwork...The linen was handspun and handwove. It's handspun nature is identifiable by the frequent joins in the thread since only short lengths could be spun at a time and each join was makred by a slight lumpiness. Before the mid sixteenth century only a distaff existed, but then a form of spinning wheel with the wheel turned by a foot treadle, so that it left both hands free, was invented. In spite of later improvements to the spinning wheel, no truly mechanical spinning of linen was possible until 1825, and even then the threads were relatively coarse. Pg 25
I've been hearing most of my SCA "life" that slubbiness is not a preferred quality in fabric and that the quality of spinning/weaving in period is much better than common expectation. To the point that raw silk is frequently held up as being improper since people who could afford to have silk imported would not have paid for that poor a quality. So reading this strikes me as "typical mundane person assuming that things can only be done well with technology". On the other hand this is a lace scholar who has a very good reputation so in theory should know what she's talking about.
Comments
It sounds like this person is a lace scholar but not necessarily a history-of-fiber scholar, especially for fibers before lace really existed...
I've never tried spinning linen, but I'm sure that it would make a nasty thick/thin/slubby mess because that's what my wool looks like :)
I have lots of information about silk if you ever want to know that stuff, too. I'm not even sure they made silk noil in period (haven't found a reference to it, raw silk references in period usually refer to reeled silk still in the gum). I haven't read anything that says that silk was spun in period. But duppioni is a slubby reeled silk that was made in period and considered lower quality than standard silk. wormspit.com has a lot of silk reeling info
I'm having a hard time accepting the green spinning of linen. Perhaps it was lightly retted first? As I understand it, retting allows the hard, unspinnable, outer cover to be removed from the fiber more completely and easily. Or perhaps it could be a very different plant, that was still flax, but was prepared differently than the flax we have today. Hmmm... That annual flooding might have done some retting for them.
Please, may I have a Time Machine, just for a week or so? I've got a few things I'd like to go check. ;)
...hours of slow painstaking labour in highly uncomfortable cow byres, where the moist warmth emanating from the cows below kept the fine flax thread supple and the hands of the lacemakers from becoming stiff with cold. pg 8
Before the mid sixteenth century only a distaff existed So what the hell did they spin with? A distaff is a raw fiber holder, you can use one with a wheel (and should do if you're spinning linen)
Great wheels, as your other respondent said, were around by the 13th century. I'm not sure when the Charka was invented (in India) for spinning cotton, but I think they've been around at least that long.
I've seen the Shroud of Turin. That's handspun linen. It is not slubby, it's actually very fine and even (which is one of the reasons they seem to think it's relatively modern, or did till they carbon dated part of it). I've seen other SCA period garments in the V&A, some amazing rennaisance altar cloths, and ecclesiastical drag and the quality of the handspun and hand woven fabric is phenomenal -- never mind the quality of the embroidery!
She needs a visit from the Clue Fairy, or failing that, from AnneLiese :)
"Laceweight" wool yarn is 2,600 yards/pound and up. An average drop spindle can hold between one and 2 ounces of single-ply yarn. So we're talking skein lengths upwards of 162.5 yards, probably topping out at about 400 yards of the really fine stuff (wool or linen). Even I can get a good 200 yards of laceweight wool yarn on a spindle, and I'm not that good. I can't spin linen worth a toot, so my linen is a bit thick and slubby. But that's not because it can't be spun better than that, only because *I* haven't spent the time learning the tricks of it.
She's certainly no scholar of the history of fiber/fabric, perhaps she got her reputation from others as ignorant.
Can you write to her and ask her, politely of course, WTF?
I have a feeling at least a little bit of thread history is going to end up in my class when I get around to teaching it. Especially since if you Goggle her name you come up with LOTs of people referencing her.
The term 'Luddite' is also to be considered. Luddites were technophobes who would riot and prevent or tear down mills and factories, frequently spinning and weaving establishments. We are still dealing with Luddites today. They are the folks who say that using a cell phone will give you cancer, or cause gasoline to ignite as you fill your tank. We know that's not true, but how many gas stations have signs telling you to turn off your cell phone?
Great wheels are easy to build and treadle-flyer wheels require more skill. There were three significant improvements to the early spinning wheel, which was turned using one hand, whether great or not. The other hand was busy controlling the fiber as it was being spun or as it was being wound onto the spindle. It was a two step process of spinning, then winding. The first improvement would be the Minor's head, or acceleration through gears/wheels, allowing twist to be created much faster. The second would be the treadle, for foot power. The third would be the flyer, or the take up system that allows fiber to be spun and wound at the same time. Using a flyer, spinning becomes a one step process. Treadle-flyer wheels are documented back to 1524. The Minor's head was added by Amos Minor in 1803. (Bette Hochberg, 'Spin Span Spun')
I've got an acceleration head on the treadle-flyer wheel in my living room. It is an option to use it and I've got options on how to brake my flyer, as well. I like that wheel because I can configure it for a wide variety of fibers and yarns.
I figured between you and
Their opposition to the technology was economic -- the new power looms and power spinning machines meant than inexperienced weavers and spinners could produce yarn and cloth almost as good as that produced by hand by the experienced folk. The mill owners were hiring inexperienced people, paying them less than they had to pay the experts. The experts, who'd been making good money found themselves in the untenable position of either having little or no work, or having to go to work on the new technology for a lot less money.
They went after the machinery, not the mill owners. On occasion mill owners came out to protect their property and got hurt, some were killed, but they were not the Luddite's targets, the machinery was.
It was a very complex time socially and economically. Not a good time to be poor, or see your means of earning a living disappear.
Elizabeth Wayland Barber's book >a href="http://www.woolery.com/Pages/coversweave/womenswork.html> Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years</a> is an excellent source on how it was done the way it was and why it took so long for the technology to change.
She proposes that leisure and plenty are the mother of invention, not necessity -- because it's only when you've got time and extra "stuff" that you can afford to experiment. If you're scrabbling to survive, you have neither the time nor the extra stuff to experiment with better ways of doing something.
In 1816 Heathcoat's mill in Loughborough was attacked by the Luddites, who championed the cause of those workers who had been made redundant by the new-fangled machinery, and his 55 lace frames were distroyed. Pg 17
...made of the exceptionally fine flax thread of northern Europe which for more than 150 years has never been repeated, perhaps because some change in climatic conditions affected the sturdiness of the flax plant or caused a particular variety of that species, Linum usitatissimum, to die out
Across the board, the ancients (i.e. almost everyone from the Egyptians to Northern Europeans in the early 17th century) were able to produce superior texiles to those we currently use in both fineness and quality of materials.
There's a team of forensic textile experts who're working on comparing Mallory's 1924 climbing equipment to that of modern climbers. The BBC had an interesting report the other day. It's not just the fabric, but also the tailoring. Mallory's gear was bespoke tailored. Most modern climbers -- even the professionals-- buy ready-made clothing. That's indicative of how far we've fallen, that even professionals don't see the value of having their specialised clothing tailored to fit them.
(I should stop, I'm getting perilously close to ranting in your journal -- you've hit one of my hot buttons )
BTW -- we are getting together at Pennsic aren't we? I'm camping with Quatrefoil somewhere in the N10 - N12 range IIRC. I'll be there both weeks.
If things work out right and my office gives me leave I'll be up the 2nd Saturday and staying through the end.
When I spin wool, I have to add slubs so it looks "handspun," otherwise it is perfectly even.
And never, never, never trust anyone's comments about how slow it is to spin, weave, or make lace. It is only slow because we revivalists have not had experts to learn from. At the folklife festival, I have watched Thai, Indian, and UAE expert weavers weave a width of cloth at a pace of a half inch a minute, and I saw a bobbin lace weaver doing the same - her hands looked as though they were dancing.