Deborah, what period does Textile Manufactures in Early Modern England
cover? I would guess 1500s at the earliest. I have the book on digs in
London, which covers through 1400s, but my interest is earlier, when
women would have been spinning/weaving for their households rather than
for piecework.
I have the same interest in Colonial- and early-Republic
spinning/weaving--during the time when it was fairly common for women to
produce the yarn and some of the weaving for their families' textile
needs. I've never found a good book on that subject, though Laurel
Thatcher Ulrich's books always make me hungry for more. I've pored
through the pictures in Keep Me Warm One Night with a magnifying glass,
searching for info on yarn thickness :)
<<I don't know how you wove it, or on what type of loom (or, more
importantly, with what kind of heddles) but keep in mind the
original, from York, was probably woven on a warp-weighted loom,
which puts much less stress and abrasion on the warp.>>
I used my Harrisville, which of course isn't period :) I'm on the SCA
Weaving list, and have learned a little about WWLs there. I'm not quite
ready to spin all my yarn on a spindle and build a WWL to weave on yet,
but if I ever get the info I need on wool type, I just might!
The warp in question was the tog separated from the thel, spun as a
singles to a thickness like that given for the yarn in the York book.
It was a beautiful fleece, different shades of brown from near cinnamon
to blond. I used the thel for singles weft, spun in the different twist
direction, which led to the interesting discovery that pattern
disappears when the twist is different in warp and weft singles.
The problem was that the tog of this fleece was pretty long, and though
I combed and spun it worsted, then sized it, there wasn't enough twist
in it to keep the ends of the fibers from working out of the yarn while
weaving, causing it to tangle with adjacent fibers and shred.
I've since learned that singles used for warp in weaving on the WWL
traditionally had what I consider extremely high twist angles--as high
as 60 degrees sometimes, I've read, while I used no more than 15 at most
in that project.
It made a beautiful piece in spite of the difficulties, and I gave it to
a scholarly person with an interest in that place and time, who will use
it in teaching.
Holly
daunted but not deterred by failures :)
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