Textiles

Textiles

By Mike Simpson

History Of Textiles

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Textile History - Plain Weave, Twill, Satin

Textile or cloth is a flexible woven material which consists of a network of natural or artificial fibers which are also called thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibers of materials like wool, flax and cotton, and producing long strands. The word 'textile' comes from Latin “textilis” which means “woven”. The oldest evidence of humans using fabrics is from dyed flax fibers found in a cave in the Republic of Georgia which date from 34,000 BC. Flax fibers were, in this case, used for making a type of felt fabric. The earliest evidence of weaving date from 27,000 years ago and were found in Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic in the shape of impressions of textiles and basketry and nets on little pieces of hard clay. First examples of Nålebinding, which is a type of single needle knitting without knots, date from 6500 BC. There are three basic three types of textile weaves: plain weave, twill and satin

Felt and Feltmaking

History of Felt and Feltmaking – First Textile

Felt is a type of of textile that is not woven but produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. It can be made of natural or synthetic fibers. Feltmaking is older than spinning and weaving and many cultures have legends about how of feltmaking was invented. Sumerians claim that the secret of feltmaking was discovered by Urnamman of Lagash, a traveler and a Sumerian a legendary warrior hero. Christians have legends that felt is an invention of Saint Clement or Saint Christopher. They both were fleeing from prosecution and they packed their sandals with wool to prevent blisters and make shoes more comfortable but at the end of their journey the wool turned into felt socks from the movement and sweat. National Museum in Copenhagen has preserved caps made of solid felt from the early Bronze Age. They were found in the pre-historic burial mounds of Jutland and North Slesvig and date back some 3500 years. Classical Greek authors mention the use of felt. Specialized workshops for making felt hats and felt gloves were discovered in Pompeii. Nomadic peoples still practice feltmaking and make rugs, tents and clothing out of felt for everyday use and for selling to tourists.

History of Cotton

​Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows on the cotton plants. It grows in a boll around the seeds of the plant. The fiber of cotton is almost pure cellulose. Several civilizations in both the Old and New World stated using cotton for making fabrics, independently of each other. Cotton was used in the Old World from at least 5000BC. Evidence of cotton use has been found at the site of Mehrgarh, on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, Pakistan, where early cotton threads have been preserved in copper beads. Some of the oldest cotton bolls were discovered in a cave in Tehuacán Valley, Mexico, and were dated to approximately 3600 BC. Evidence of cotton was also found in Peru in the form of seeds and cordage dating to about 4500 BC. Herodotus mentions Indian cotton in the 5th century BC. Troops of Alexander the Great that invaded India started wearing cotton clothes because they were more comfortable comparing to their woolen ones. In the 8th century the Muslim conquest of Spain brings cotton to the rest of the Europe.