Horsehair fabrics were initially woven on a cotton, linen or silk warp with a weaver standing at a loom all day and a small child sitting in the loom with the horse tail, passing each hair to the weaver. The Education Act of 1870, ensured that all children went to school, and this led to the development of mechanical looms patented by John Boyd.

A mechanical picker is able to tease one hair from the tail. Two bunches of hair are held at the side of the loom, one sorted so it has the tips towards loom, the other in reverse position. The picker selects one from each bunch alternately; in this way the slight taper in their shape is cancelled out and a straight fell maintained.

Textiles woven with horse hair both as warp and weft are used to make kitchen sieves. And cloth woven with occasional horsehairs is still used as interfacing by tailors.

Since the invention of cars the number of horses in Europe has declined and there isn't sufficient local horsehair. It is now sourced mainly from Asia where they still use working horses with cropped tails. Horsehair sourced from live horses gives the best quality fabric.

Black horsehair is overdyed to give a pure shiny black sheen to the fabrics. Mixed Grey horsehair is a mixture of brown tones and is used undyed to give a wonderful natural strae in the fabric. Both types of horsehair give a fabric width of 65 cms (26").

Natural white horsehair is used undyed to give lovely pale ivory coloured fabrics and is also bleached and dyed giving an exceptional range of colours. These horsehair fabrics are 56 cms wide (22") due to the shorter length of white horsehair.

Horse hair fabrics are still woven by John Boyd Textiles at Castle Carey. Their site shows several designs of their over 150 products. Although the historical fabrics are still woven, contemporary designers also appreciate the unique qualities of horsehair fabrics. Many new designs and colours have been added to their collection in recent years.

References
www.johnboydtextiles.com
www.southpacificfabrics.com

Posted by Prue Hill at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our exhibition. We had many lovely and interesting items to show or sell and had a lot of interest from the show visitors. The demonstrations of spinning and weaving were also popular with a lot of schoolgirls lining up to try a piece of rag weaving and requests to learn spindle spinning which was shown at one stage on an improvised spindle made from a plastic computer disk and a piece of wooden dowel.

Although our space was smaller than we wished, it opened on to a large café area so our display could be seen by people while they were having lunch and so we had visits from people who may not have found us otherwise.

I was lucky to have such a competent and hard working display team who helped to make it a success. They checked entries, compiled lists, manufactured display props, attached labels, photographed everything, packed and repacked entries, set up the display and sales area and arrived day after day to help with all of the jobs. Thank you to Barb, Susan, Barbara, Gwen and Sue.

Thanks also to Chie and Yvonne who helped with setting up. To Tua, Isabel, Kris, Ros, Diana, Lucy and Elizabeth who spent hours talking to people and promoting the various aspects of our craft. To Phil who ferried equipment there and back and came day after day with the money and stayed to help. To Jenny, Helen, Denise, Gwen ,Sue and Jenny for supervising the sales desk. And to all the other members who came to help in various ways, we couldn't do it without you. I hope you all enjoyed it.

The peoples' choice award goes to number 62: a knitted lace shawl by Liudmilla Abramova. Equal second place goes to number 28: "Sea Birds" by Denise Stevens (handwoven transparency) and number 80: handspun, knitted shawl by Jean Brown from the Nowra network group.

Lucille Ryan, Exhibition Co-ordinator

Posted by Prue Hill at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)