Not too long ago I chanced on a very interesting piece of wool fabric. It's
100% wool, but due to the way it's made, it has as much natural stretch as a
lycra/wool blend! (Yes, I'm sure it's 100% wool.)
It's a slightly loose basket weave, but that alone isn't what makes it so
stretchy; rather, the stretchiness seems to come from the fact that both
warp and weft are VERY tightly twisted. With the slightly loose weave, both
warp and weft sort of crimp up a lot more than you usually see, so when you
pull on it, the threads straighten out temporarily. The tightness of the
spinning keeps the whole thing from shrinking up; the weave stays slightly
loose. (If it shrank at all after I washed it, the amount was too small for
me to measure.) When pulled, it stretches to about 110%-115% of its
original length/width. That may not sound like much, but it's a whole lot
when, say, you're making a supportive gown, or a pair of hose.
I'm in love with it. I've got about 7 yds of it, and I am afraid to use it,
because my hoarding instinct says it must be saved for the exact right
project. (It wants to be 2 different styles of supportive undergowns, and I
think I can get both out of it, but then it'd be gone and I'd lose/gain 20
lbs and be unable to wear them.)
But more importantly, it has completely changed my idea of how much stretch
medieval wool fabrics might have had! I've read archaeological reports of
worsted textiles made from yarns spun with a high twist before; I am now
going to go back and give them a much closer look. Somehow, I doubt that
the archaeologists who studied those textiles gave 'em a good stretch...
-E House
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