weaving with vegetable fibres

[xylaria]

They still aren't very palettable and thats from someone that will happily munch all manner of hairy green things like hogweed and cleavers.

I am sure infant soya milk gave my daughter the begining of puberty when she was two, the doctor thought I was talking nonsense when I said the soya is very high in oestrogens and told me my daughter will get malnutrition if she didn't drink it. We changed her milk to goats milk, and she has turned out fine. I don't think eating large quantities of any plant is healthy, and the quantity of soy that ends up in modern food i think is unhealthy. This is so far off topic its off the map. Soya fibre is very nice, the beans aren't that great.

 

[Roibeard]

I think weaving with vegetable fibers especially using native plants is a very interesting topic.
It would be awesome to try replicate some textiles using technology from the Neolithic or even the Mesolithic period when this textile may been more common.
Elm bark or lime bark would be another potential fiber to use.
The indigenous people of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido the Ainu are known for their elm bark cloth.
In the Irish Mesolithic period there is no evidence for deer, indeed the biggest land mammal widely hunted was the wild boar.
I think the bristly skin of wild boars would make quite uncomfortable clothing so perhaps their was widespread production of nettles or elm bast cloth.
Sadly evidence for this is exceptionally unlikely to be preserved.

 

[rivermom]

there are some fascinating ideas in this thread. i would love to see some detailed instructions or tutorials on making thread from things like flax and soya and bramble. i have managed to make thread from nettle and from new zealand flax. but it is an area of bushcraft that i am very interestred in.

 

[humblebumble]

if i get the oppurtunity i'll attempt to make cloth from nettles this year. the challenge obviously will be making nice thread.

i might just end up with sackcloth, but i'm sure it'll be educational

 

[humblebumble]

oh.my.god!

this is soooo cool!

you'll never guess what i got while we were clearing out the shop in wick (i'm working with a charity group, and we're changing premises in wick, so we have to load everything up and move it)

"Lint & Linen - The Flax Harvest of the 1950's"

"For over 250 years farmers all around Ireland grew flax and the world famous Irish Linen label became a symbol of wealth and prosperity.
By the 1950's the man-made fibre industry began to spell the end of flax growing and by the end of that decade it had failed to exist completely in this area.
This year Tom Stewart and his neighbours for gortnamoyagh, outside Garvagh, men with a keen interest in the past, decided to grow 2.5 acres of the famous flax. This video film follows Tom's progress and highlights his many struggles with the weather.
As well as the nostalgic memories which this film should bring back we also show a side which many of the farmers never saw.
As well as the growing, pulling, stooking, dam retting and drying, we also follow the crop through scutching, spinning, weaving, beetling, bleching until after being handled 27 times the Gortnamoyagh flax is transferred into a beautiful although expensive Irish Linen tablecloth."

how cool is that?!?!?

maybe it's time to take the telly back in from the shed, dust off the VCR and buy a new scart lead after all.

this is like fate, man. it's like this one time i was in derby on a shop run with a friend, who had this cool wee hand-driven singer sewing machine, and i was asking him where he got it, and he said he just found it in a charity shop, and i should keep my eyes peeled, and just before we got back in the car at the end of the day i was walking past blythewood and i saw one almost just the same sticking out of a skip. mines, i said. and it worked as well.

fate, that's what it is. now i'm off to the bottom of the garden to give some cider to the faeries that live in my compost bin

 

[merrylegs]

hi ya humble - i completed a textile deisgn degree a few years back - where you doing it? - i did a whole year on natural fibres and natural dyeing with veg/flower dyes and anything that you can master up! weaving them - joined fabrics toegether with leather binding/cords....i did a project on nautical knots which was pretty cool - some of those knots those i swear you needed 3 hands tho!! obvioulsy like you say in colleges etc - you do get a lot of equipment but as a trainee teacher now teaching textiles - we have no funds for equipment so now have to come up with ways of doing stuff without those lovely looms and print tables and dye vats! so its quite exciting inventing new things with children - bring back the traditional ways i say.
your in the best place to find prize leather etc for cheap tho - 2nd hand shop!

 

[humblebumble]

i'm going to galashiels. they're very much industry orientated. which is good for me, and my imaginary career.

i figure if i'm doing regular weaving at college, which is what i now do in my spare time, then i can use my spare time to do other weaving things. like the old-fashioned way and such. i want to make a viking-era warp-weight loom. amongst many, many other things.

anything with fibre and string really

 

[Toddy]

You mean you found a video of traditional flax production ??????????
There are times Andrew you're anointed Give the faeries a gift from me too, I'll pay you it back, but let me have a look too ?

How cool is that Brilliant.

cheers,
M

 

[humblebumble]

definitely. my dad's got a VHS-DVD machine, so i reckon i should be able to get it online. only just thought of that.

cool.

the logical explanation of good luck is this:

good luck happens when you're paying attention. but doing your SAO in a charity shop really helps.

 

[irishlostboy]

thread necro; i am currently experimenting with making finer fibre extractions, for fine thread, strong rope, and ideally for fabric weaving. nettle is my prime interest at the moment. i am trying to get a good system of removing the fibre from the wood/gunk etc. so far i have weathered it in the grass for a few days, dried it a bit, and then wet it/try strip out the fibres by hand using fingers and my now grotty thumbnails. this is super duper SLOW. i now have enough fibre for a flea's fishing rod. it is amazingly fine stuff. barely visible to the eye.but after a few hours i barely have a single nettle stalk stripped out. obviously i am missing some vital information to speed this up. the info above has definitely helped. some other questions though;

retting. when is it done? will the fibres slide free when done? is there any sure-fire visual indicator to tell me when to remove a bail of nettles from the river? checking daily is ok if i know what i am checking for.

storing of nettle. i will probably harvest a load of nettle in the next few weeks, de-leaf it, strip out the insides and try store it so i can experiment in batches, instead of trying to rett it all at once and wasting it all in my first screw-up (of which there are always many) is this a good idea?

 

[Toddy]

Okay, nettles.

Basically nettles will yield 1 or 2% of their dried weight in fibre. That's it.
Flax will give about 11 or 12%, so that's one of the reasons for it's popularity.

You can dry nettle and then work the bunches back and forwards as Xylaria described across the back of a chair, or if you're doing loads using a flax break. The fibres are short though so a good stout comb does an excellent job of finishing breaking them out.

I find it easiest to pull the stems, walk along them to crush and then let them lie in the grass for a few days. Stook them and let them dry and then work the fibres free,
They can be retted, and if it's a good rett, you will get the most beautiful fine white fibres......mine are about 7 or 8 cms long, much shorter than flax or hemp. I have heard of folks simmering the fibre rich skins in hardwood ashes, or bicarbonate of soda or washing soda, for a bit to help free the fibres too. I've got some ready to have a shot at this just now.

Nettle spins beautifully and weaves into a fine, white, hardwearing cloth with a lovely handle.

Basically you need to pull the stems, somehow or other compromise their structure to facilitate the breakdown of the stuff that holds the fibre rich skin onto the woody core, dry them out a bit, and then work the fibres free,

Peeling the skins allows cordage to be made from the fibre rich lengths, it's not the same thing as freeing the fibres for spinning for weaving or knitting, nalbinding or the like.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[irishlostboy]

as alwayys you are a fountain of knowledge toddy. i thank you. i will try out the back of chair and a good comb method. gotta be quicker then current method. so far i am getting lovely fibres of up to a foot in length sometimes, but it is too slow. but i do so want to eventually have enough skill to make clothing from start to finish.
any clue how long the fibre can be stored once removed from the nettle? it will probably be a very long time before i get enough to spin.

 

[Toddy]

So long as you keep it fungus / mould free it will keep indefinitely. It's survived 4,000 years that we are pretty sure of, so it's a real goodie

We know that there was a huge amount made in Britain and Ireland, but our soils are damp and generally acidic and that destroys it. It's why wool is preserved in the grave and the bogs and the linens and nettle cloth are not.

I'd love to see the fibres, and cloth, that folks make from it

cheers,
Toddy