I enjoy Syne Mitchell’s WeaveCast – but this particular recent episode is of double interest – she interviews Marje Thompson, who knows an awful lot about historic weave structures and the state of weaving in Colonial America. Of particular interest:
- Colonists were city people. They initially brought no textile tools more complex than a needle. No spinning wheels, no looms. Country (self-sufficient) people found it much harder to leave. It’s a wonder any of them survived.
- Fabric production was much more valuable than woodcrafts. A ‘bed’ in a will refers to the soft furnishings, not the bedframe, which was essentially worthless. One letter refers to buying a bed valued at 133 pounds sterling, and a highboy with many locks for 66 pounds.
- Monday was laundry day because you were well-rested from Sunday rest. Somehow this conveys the physical nature of preindustrial life more than anything else. Underclothes washed – other clothing not – so shawls and such woven with overshot designs featuring long floats that would catch during use…the floats were CUT. Since it wasn’t tossed in a mechanical washer, it would hold up just fine.
- ‘Traditional’ weaving designs featured many treadles (I think I heard one for 32!) going back to the medieval period. They discuss Germany’s double-headed eagle.
- So weaving is highly-paid, highly-trained, NOT cottage work for Everywoman. Interesting.
This shows the moral dilemma that I have when I use my spinning wheel at the 1880’s farm at the museum. It gives me something to do, and people really enjoy watching it (sometimes I weave, as well). But it’s very unlikely that an 1880’s farmwoman would have been doing this. If anyone is actually historically curious, I explain that it was done during the 1860’s when we couldn’t get cloth from the northern mills.