[Moo] Fwd: Re: Textile Question

Sat Nov 26 08:39:04 PST 2005

Stierbach,

      Lady Annalena sent me this rather in depth and  wonderfully informative response to my question.  She sent it  directly to my personal addy instead of the whole group and has asked  me to forward it to the group list.
     As a side note I followed her advise and went to G-Street  for a look.  I met a very nice British lady who works at the  Potomac Mills store.  She introduced me to Melton Wool that  G-Street sells for about $40/yd.  She told me that this is named  for the shire in England where the process was created and says they  have been producing it there for centuries.  This also happens to  be where she was born and so to my benefit she took some pride in  explaining it.  They only had one bolt of it and it was a very  nice brown.  I resisted the urge to purchase it and am taking my  time as there is no great rush.
     The next bit of advise I'm going to follow from the below  letter is to check out "My An" 1319 Sheppard Dr, Sterling  703-444-2117.  I hope this discussion is helpful to others as it  has been for me.  I have learned quite a bit from everyone who was  kind enough to respond to my questions.

  Marcolo

csfriedman at adelphia.net wrote:  Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:00:52 -0500
From:  <csfriedman at adelphia.net>
To: stierbacher at yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [Moo] Textile Question

   Hiya!

Worsted  wool is not wool with the lanolin still in it, if that's what you are  looking for. There is a trace amount of lanolin in all wool, but if you  want the real thing you're not goind to find that on the open market.  You can buy sweaters from a few countries like Ireland and Scandinavia  where they are still made out of such wool; typically they only come in  natural wool colors (the lanoline gets washed out by the dye process)  and you can literally feel the oil on your hands when you rub the  fabric.

I've never seen woven fabric from that kind of wool sold  in retail stores, but someone may correct me on this if they know of it  :-)

Worsted wool is wool in which the fiber has been twisted  very tightly, and in such a way as to make a much smoother and less  scritchy thread. It typically is much thinmer, softer to the feel, and  sometimes even has a faint sheen. It is also way more expensive than  regular wool. Very popular for men's suits and women's dresses, however  I'm not sure you need that kind of investment for a cloak. (this is  where you generally get into 20$+ a yard.) If you don't like itchiness,  worsted is sometimes more comfortable. 

 >    What determines how tight the weave is, thread count? 
You  look at it and determine if you like it. There is no other measure of  qualiity. Harris Tweed, one of most famous and expensive wools,  supposedly hand made in scotland from special sheep bred for that one  label, has large, coarse threads. If you want tweedy stuff, that's the  way to go. Pendleton makes worsteds so fine and soft they can feel like  silk. Thread count is not directly related to quality except for  worsteds, since a bulky, thick thread is not necessarily "worse" than a  thin one. 

Density is easy to test. Hold it up throught the  light and see how much you can see through it. Play with it in your  hand and see if you can disturb the weave. Play with the edge and see  if threads come loose easily (they shouldnt'). Feel the weight of one  yard of dense wool vs. one yard of cheap crappy wool. 

Wool is  naturally rain-friendly (note I do not say repellent) due in part to  residual oils in the fiber, but mostly due to the fact that the  structure of the fiber means there are millions of microscopic pockets  surrounding each thread. After it has resisted the rain for a while, or  in a particularly heavy rain, it will begin to absorb the water.  Howver, it will absorb a lot of water without feeling wet on the  inside, thus making it the best natural fiber for rain gear. Wool that  is thick and dense will obviously do this a lot better than paper thin  worsted (also, the same process that make worsted smooth lessen its  capacity to absorb water properly. ) Fluffy, thick wool where you can't  easily pull the threads apart in your hand are the best for warmth.

Also  you can look at the edge of the fabric. When wool is washed and handled  a certain way it felts, which bonds the fibers together. When this  happens, you won't be able to pull loose threads off the cut end of the  fabric easily. Wool like this is best for your purpose and is pretty  close to period fabric. You can also get boiled wool, though it is  horrendously expensive (but very period). Boiled wool has been  subjected to heat and friction until the fibers totally felt, and also  shrinks a lot. It is thick, stretchy, and you could not pull threads  out of it if your life depended on it. It is expensive because of the  shrinkage factor; boiled wool may be 2-3 times more dense than regular  wool. If you like to be warm, it makes great leggings and gowns,  because eventually it molds to the shape of the body beneath it, almost  like elastic. 

Frankly, if you find a place that sells woolen  blankets that's often the best way to get a nice big piece of cloak-  weight wool at a reasonable price. 

>    How comfortable is the wool? is it itchy?  

Wool  has sharp little microscopic scales on it that break off and lodge in  the skin. It bothers some people a lot (a so-called "wool allergy") and  they can break out in a terrible rash. Other people are not bothered at  all. My mom turned red if a piece of wool ever touched her skin. I  could wear the same fabric for underwear and not be bothered. If you  are really not sure about this, buy an inch-wide strip, tie it around  your wrist for a day, and if it doesn't bother you, you're immune :-)

For  the rest of the world, wool varies according to sheep breed and  processing. Run your hand over it and if it feels itchy, it will feel  itchy when you make something out of it. Worsted usually does not have  the itchy quality, and tweed has the worst. If you don't have an  "allergy reaction" to worry about, it's simply a question of what feels  good.

Also recognize that having it close against your skin,  rubbing you, is worse than just wearing it in a cloak. So if you line a  collar in something more comfortable (silke was often used to finish  the openings in wool garments) it helps lower the "itchiness quotient".  

>    How stable is the dye? Will it bleed all over my garb when it rains?  

No  more than any other modern fabric. I"m personally wary of anythign from  India/Pakistan as I have noted more bleeding from fabrics inthat region  than elsewhere, howevr they are not really wool producers. Note that  most wools will have "dry clean only" on the label because of the  shrinkage factor (which can be up to 50% if you do everythign wrong.)  Most wool can be gently washed in cold water, by hand, and laid out to  dry (don't hang it up, the weight of all the water will stretch it  out.) Brushing is almost always sufficient maintenance, cloaks rarely  have to be cleaned. 

True lanolin-heavy wool , as I said, is usually not dyed.

Some wools are labelled "washable wools" these are generally

1) worsteds that have been pre shrunk, where the threads are so tightly twisted the scales can't catch on each other.

2)  wool that has chemically been stripped of its tiny scales, or coated in  some substance to glue them down to the fiber shaft. In the former case  you will lose th einsulating quality of the wool as the tiny scales are  what make all the air pockets. In the latter case you will do so even  more, as the surface of the fiber has been sealed. However, these forms  of wool are usually good for peopel with "wool allergies".

3) It  has been mixed with another fiber, usually nylon, to cut cost a bit and  keep the scaly fibers apart. A good blend (wooly surface, not shiny)  can look like 100% wool, go in the washing machine, and be a lot easier  to wear, however nylon can catch fire so I would't wear it around  campfires. 

If you wish to see what real period wool looks and  feels like, I recommend you hit the reenactment sites online; the ones  that sell fabric will often send you swatches. This is also a great way  to see period colors and fabric weights. Granted most of these places  are a few centuries later than SCA period, but dying technology did not  change all that much until the mid 19th century. Many of them can also  give you a "thread count", but it's very rare that fabric in a modern  store will have that info listed anywhere so it doesn't do you much  good ot know it :-) 

http://www.najecki.com/repro/Wool.html

Best  advice for wool, given how much you need for a cloak is...wait for a  sale, see if you like the feel of it when rubbed against your face, and  buy based on whether you like it :-) avoid mixed fibers if you are not  comfortable with judging what looks like "real wool".

G street  fabric has some beautiful wools of the most sophisticated types, and is  expensive, but a good place to go study them and decide what you want.  Sometimes they have sales on good cloak stuff.

My-An is inside  the beltway, you'd have to look up the address (I think falls church)  and is an awesomely large store with very good prices. I seem to  remember them having some nice wools, esp. in black. you can nail a  real bargain there, but don't try to get advice as most of them don't  speak that much english. You shoudl visit G street to know what you  want before you go there

Annalena    

Hope that helps!

.

---- Mark Valente  wrote: 
> Greetings,
>   
>  I am interested in purchasing some Worsted Wool for making winter  cloaks. However I am not well versed in this topic. When looking for  wool with the lanolin still in what are the differences in quality I  should look for? For example 
>   
>       
>    What determines how tight the weave is, thread count?    
>    How comfortable is the wool? is it itchy?    
>    How stable is the dye? Will it bleed all over my garb when it rains?  
>   Thanks Much,
>   Marcolo
>   MoAS Barony of Stierbach
>   
>   
>   
> 
>   
> ---------------------------------
>  Yahoo! FareChase - Search multiple travel sites in one click.  

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