At 03:01 AM 4/27/2009, you wrote:
Elena House wrote:
Wow, you know, this just suddenly put the whole medieval textile
industry into perspective for me, since the type of design I most want
to see in brocade is on average at least 50cm x 150cm repeat. You do
the math for the cost on that one....
*nods*
I saw a nearly perfect all-silk scarlet and yellow brocade, very
medieval, at Britex, more than a dozen years ago, for $150/yard. I
spent quite a while admiring it.
I suspect that there are suitable top of the line brocades out
there, it's just getting access to the catalogs that places like
Britex uses for their ordering is impossible for the rest of us.
--
Cynthia Virtue and/or Cynthia du Pre Argent
I had the great pleasure of seeing (and touching!) some 100% silk
velvets (plain, figured, and cut/uncut) hand-woven in Italy at last
month's weavers' guild meeting here in Sacramento, CA. I also found
out why the fabrics are only 22-24 inches wide; the velvet wires that
are used to get the pile cannot be kept straight in the weaving if
the fabric is too wide. Given that one weaver boasted that he could
weave 20 cm in a day(!) of a figured velvet (our speaker thought that
he was possibly exaggerating a bit), you can see why it costs 350
Euro per meter. Velvets with cut and uncut sections are even more
expensive because they are even more labor-intensive and require a
very steady hand in cutting just the right portions of the pattern.
Even solid colored velvet is very expensive. So, yes, wearing the
worth of a manor on one's back is not an exaggeration.
Joan Jurancich
[email protected]
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