In Howard Priestman's book, Principles of Woollen Spinning (1924), he discusses a variety of carding and opening processes. Included in these is a rag machine or devil which is used to grind or pull rags of all kinds of knitted and woven wool fabric. The rags are beaten by a toothed swift and are literally shaken to pieces. In the book, he says:

The product of the devil is shoddy, mungo, or alpaca, as the case may be; shoddy being made from hosiery and other milled goods, mungo from milled cloth, and alpaca, or extract, from any class of material that has been carbonized.

He says that wool is said to be carbonized when it is treated with sulphuric acid or other chemicals, in such a way as to destroy the undesirable vegetable matter and to leave the wool uninjured.

It would appear that a class of recycled woollen material was called alpaca as compared to the wool from the Peruvian animal.

According to the OED, the name is made up of the Spanish (Arabic origin) al plus paco which is described as probably a Peruvian name. The word was originally alpaco.

There is a 1604 citation from a history of the West Indies to pacos, sheep bearing wool, then a 1753 citation to pacos as a species of camel, also known as the Indian sheep or Peruvian sheep. In 1827 another publication says The paco or alpaco was first clearly described by M. Frederic Cuvier in 1821. Then in 1836 there is an advertisement for the Liverpool wool sales offering 400 bags of Alpaca wool, just landed.

Then the name seems to have been transferred to clothing made of alpaca, or of other thin wool resembling alpaca. There is no mention in the OED of any carbonization processed wools. The most recent citation in the OED is to 1900, to a woman wearing a shabby, ink-stained alpaca dress. The name now is used only for the wool of the animal and signifying a luxury fibre.

Here's a web page that talks about shoddy and mungo and mentions using alpaca noils as well as other noils in the manufacture of cheaper woollen goods: Wool Substitutes And Waste Products

Posted by Prue Hill at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Part 3 of the series written by G Gohl for the HW&SG Journals in 1979/80 concerning progress of the 'Manufactory' at Parramatta.

Governor Hunter wrote to the Duke of Portland in April 1800:

"Your Grace may be assured that I do not neglect such means as may be in my power for trying what may be done to establish the weaving of cloth. The specimens sent by this conveyance, although prepared under many disadvantages, may serve to show what may be expected as soon as we have abundance of raw materials in our power. The sheep thrive exceedingly and the specimens of woollen cloth will in some degree show the quality of fleece; the breed of sheep which produced the wool is between the Cape ram and the Bengal ewe.

Continue reading "Women Transported" »

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Extracted and edited from The Historical Records of Australia [published by the Library Committee of the Commonwealth Government] by Geoff Gohl and republished with his permission.

Contrary to popular belief, the first usable fibre produced in the Colony of New South Wales was flax rather than wool.

Captain Arthur Phillip was given two commissions, the second of which instructed him as follows:

"It cannot be expedient that all the convicts which accompany you should be employed in attending only to the object of provisions, and, as it has been represented to us that advantages may be derived from the flax plant which is found in the islands not far distant from the intended settlement, not only as a means of acquiring clothing for the convicts and other persons who may become settlers, but from its superior excellence for a variety of maritime purposes, and it may ultimately become an article of export. It is therefore our will and pleasure that you particularly attend to its cultivation, and that you send home by every opportunity which may offer samples of this article, in order that a judgement may be formed whether it may be necessary to instruct you further on this matter."

Continue reading "Women Transported" »

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Governor Darling placed the Weaving Establishment at Parramatta under the control of a Civil Engineer in 1826, as follows:

Continue reading "The Parramatta Female Factory in the 1820s" »

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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.

Continue reading "Horsehair Fabric" »

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The idea of a festival showcasing textile artists arose from a small group of people discussing a support festival for the Marvellous Miniatures display by the Victorian Quilters Association at the Wangaratta Exhibitions Gallery in June 1999. This small group of industrious people called upon the local community for help. Responses came from the local textile industry, art and craft groups, spinning, weaving, quilting and embroidery action groups.

With a limited budget and lots of enthusiasm an event was organised - The Stitched Up Textile Festival 1999 was created!

Continue reading "Stitched Up Textile Festival" »

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The NSW town of Mudgee will be host to the 22nd Wool and Natural Fibre Muster on June 2 this year.

The Muster is an annual event organised by craft groups in the western regions of country NSW with an aim to help promote the use of natural fibres in hand crafts. The Muster features demonstrations, competitions and workshops on selected aspects of fibre craft.

Continue reading "22 Years of Mustering" »

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This question was asked at the last General Meeting. The simple explanation is that it is a week of workshops by tutors employed by the Guild, to cover any field of the textile arts, generally live-in and at a site where day students can attend. In recent years we have endeavoured to hold these every two years, alternating with an exhibition.

Continue reading "What is a Loomcraft School?" »

Posted by Prue Hill at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(Officially known as International Back to Back Wool Challenge)

In 1811 at Newbury in Berkshire, England, a £1,000 wager was made to make a coat from the sheep's back to man's back in one day. Watched by 5,000 people, the coat was completed in 13 hours. The sheep was eaten with much quaffing of beer to celebrate.

Continue reading "The Back to Back Story" »

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Rutgers University has put out a DVD to explain weaving and spinning. The weaving and spinning metaphors are so embedded in ancient literature that modern students need to understand the processes.

An Introduction to Wool-Working for Readers of Greek and Latin — Text & Textile

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According to this web site of Kathleen Jenks, PhD, from Dept of Mythological Studies, Pacifica Graduate Institute:

Myths of weaving exist around the world as metaphors for creation. The spindle is often an axis mundi and its whirling whorls serve a cosmogonic function. Many goddesses are spinners and weavers.

Weaving Arts and Lore — Mythology's Myth*ingLinks

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When people migrated from Pennsylvania in the 1700s, many carried weaving patterns for the blankets that would come in handy on such treks.

Pulaski County farmer Richard Guthrie found some of those patterns when he was going through family heirlooms dating back several hundred years.

Guthrie said he and his siblings had divided items from the family farm, and he and his wife got a so-called butler's safe. In it, they found a copy of the 1700s deed to the original farm and the weaving patterns.

He donated the patterns to Bob Harman at the Olde Virginia Textile Museum, which opened last year in Pulaski, and Harman has started producing them on vintage looms at his museum.

The 54-by-68-inch blankets will go for $45 wholesale and $95 retail. Harman is hoping history organizations will use them as fundraisers. He also hopes to raise money from them to support the museum.

1700s weaving patterns produced on vintage looms — The Roanoke Times

Posted by Red Wolf at 9:15 PM | Permalink

Following the "500th" article in the August Guild News:

The Guild was formed on 5 July, 1947. Previous to this there was a Hand Weavers' Guild in Sydney however this became defunct during World War II.

The first Quarterly News was published in August 1949. It grew out of a suggestion by Mrs Jean McMahon at the Annual Meeting, so the Committee asked her to accept the position of editor, eventually producing 4 issues a year for 26 years. In 1954 the Quarterly was named The Australian Hand Weaver and Spinner, a name which continues to this day. The numbering system of our current annual Journal continues on from Volume l, 1949 however when we celebrate our 60th anniversary in 2007 it will be volume 60. The maths do not work out because Roman Numerals were used and went haywire a couple of times - we reverted to Arabic Numbers in 1986 after a few more errors. Following Mrs McMahon's death the Journal was given a new format with Beth Hatton as editor in 1977; the breadth of areas covered was enlarged, but it was still in black and white. By changes in the Constitution it gradually became published twice a year, (sometimes combined issues) and currently one generous issue with more photographs and colour.

Continue reading "Mostly About the Journal" »

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It isn't uncommon to find in a probate inventory that an ancestor owned several yards of lining. To understand this term, we first need to remind ourselves that our ancestors didn't care all that much about spelling and that they spoke with accents unlike our present-day American accents. Lining was the most common way of spelling linen. This even gives us a clue of how it was pronounced.

Linen yarn could create a variety of fabrics: from delicate underclothing and fine handkerchiefs to sturdy sheeting and practical outerwear. Linsey woolsey was a common fabric woven from both linen and woolen yarn.

Continue reading "Weaving and Linen" »

Posted by Red Wolf at 10:09 PM | Permalink

The clanking sounds of a loom at the American Textile History Museum take visitors back to a time when clothes were hand-woven and textiles drove the New England economy in this historic mill town and others.

Textiles are such a basic part of everybody's life, says Diane L Fagan Affleck, the museum's senior research associate. And yet I think partly because of the technology that we have today, we just don't even think about where they came from or how they came to be.

Continue reading "Weaving of Fabric and Lives" »

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Rest assurred under normal conditions Bogon moths are not a risk to our cloth items. The moths which pose a risk to our collection include the following: case-bearing clothes moths, and the common webbing clothes moths.

Continue reading "Moths" »

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Now that the Civil Partnership Act is to extend legal status to homosexual relationships, the Government has decreed that bachelor and spinster, terms ordinarily used to describe newlyweds on their marriage certificates, are to be replaced with the more egalitarian yet distinctly blander single.

Continue reading "What a Difference a Name Makes" »

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The Aran Sweater takes its name from the set of islands where it originated many generations ago, off the West coast of Ireland. The Aran Islands lie at the mouth of Galway Bay, at the mercy of the relentless Atlantic Sea. The Islanders were fishermen and farmers whose lives and livelihoods were deeply intertwined. The Aran Sweater was born of this environment, passed down from generation to generation, and has since become the ultimate symbol of Irish Clan heritage.

Continue reading "The History of Aran Jumpers" »

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Found among other items on the Provisions list for the First Fleet:

9 Hackles for flax
24 Spinning whorls
1 Loom for weaving canvas

— via Maureen (anzweavespin)

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On Christmas Eve last year there was a program on SBS television entitled The Mystery of the Three Kings. As I was cooking at the time, I saw only glimpses, enough to see that it was a wonderful story.

We were shown a piece of cloth dated from the second to the fourth century AD, in Cologne Cathedral. The cloth was said to have been used to wrap the bones of the Magi, taken by Helena, the mother of Constantine, to Byzantium. After hundreds of years they were taken to Milan, then captured by Frederick Barbarossa and given to Cologne Cathedral where they repose in a golden casket encrusted with jewels. The cloth on examination was found to be woven from Chinese silk which had been bound in gold thread. The weave was flocked damask. It was also found that the cloth had been dyed with Tyrian purple.

As a closing comment we saw the spire of the cathedral which is surmounted by a star, symbolising the Magi — via Mary Williams

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There are some superstitious prohibitions that are connected with a spindle. For example, it is not allowed to present a spindle or to lend it to somebody even for a while — it could lead to death of cattle or misfortune. The spindle is usually associated with a girl — if the parents wanted to have a daughter they used to put a spindle in the bed under the mattress. There is a special celebration in some villages on Varvara's Day (a saint in the Orthodox Church), when you should hide all the spindles, because Varvara was killed with a spindle. If this is not done, it is believed that snakes will crawl into your house. A broken spindle, like a broken mirror, is hidden or burned as it means someone in the family will die. All spindles should be hidden on 6 May, the day when cattle herds are driven to the forest for the first time, in order not to meet snakes. These few examples prove that any technology in the past was not only a craft, but also a sphere of sacred magic knowledge — via Lecture given in 1999 by Svetlana Zhulnickova, Karelian ethnologist, when she was studying traditional techniques in Sweden

Posted by Red Wolf at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

St Catherine of Alexandria was a 4th Century martyr and is considered the patron saint of spinners.

Spinners in many countries would take a holiday from their work on 25 November, St Catherine's Feast Day. Processions of spinners, often dressed in white, could be seen through parts of Western Europe and the British Isles. For some, however, this was not a day of celebration but of fasting that the maidens may find a husband and those married might improve their state by the death or desertion of their husband , or an improvement in his attitudes.

St Catherine is reported to have been one of Joan of Arc's voices. Joan was also a spinner saying at her trial For spinning and weaving put me up against any woman in Rouen — via Treadles, VIC Guild newsletter, November 2003

Posted by Red Wolf at 10:43 AM | Permalink