Thread by @starlightgeek

All right, folks.

Let's talk about fiber.

(A thread, lol)

1/many

As most of y'all know, I do reenactment, recreation, and living history. A bit of Norse, a bit medieval, and sometimes Jacobite-era (1745 Scotland).

I am a fiber artist, head of a regional weaving guild in one of my groups, and big on authenticity.

I've done what are called "sheep to shawl" projects, meaning I've taken wool from a sheep, processed it, spun it, woven it, and turned the resulting fabric into clothing.

I've also done some "seed to shawl," which is the same but for linen.

So. Pre-modern fabrics.

While there are many varieties out there, the major fiber groups are:

- wool
- silk
- linen

(Please notice "cotton" is not on that list. I'll get to that in a minute.)

I'm going to start with linen, since it's the fiber that lies closest to the skin in most societies.

Linen comes from the flax plant -- a slightly different variant from the one that we use for flaxseed oil, mind you, but similar enough. Flax grows to be about 3 ft tall.

Turning flax into linen is an incredibly long and obnoxious process, TBH.

You have to let it grow for 100 days before harvesting. The good news is that if you weed it, it doesn't need much more attention -- it doesn't attract pests, which is nice. Plus, pretty blue flowers.

Once grown, you have to harvest it, root and all, and set it in sheaves to dry.

You can leave'em to dry for months if you like. Set it and forget it. Then, you have to ret them -- this is a process of letting the outer cellulose structure rot and leaving the internal fiber intact. This is an art as much as a science and can take a couple of days (in a

moving stream), a month (on the dewey grass), or somewhere in between, such as with the stagnant pond method. My bins served well in the interim but required rotating the water out and trying to maintain a warmer temp. Tricky.

Once retted, you let them dry AGAIN. You can leave it in your barn for months or years at this stage and it'll be stable and fine.

Then, you have the actual processing to do.

(Oh and I forgot to mention: you'll want to ripple them before retting -- this means getting the seeds)

Rippling is the process of pulling the plants through coarse combs (iron teeth, generally) to remove the seed pods. These are reserved for planting the following year.

You then place the flax plant across a flax brake, which is a pretty cool tool. You feel like you're going to snap the fiber but if you've retted properly, you'll just break the outside layer off.

(Picture mine, but not of me. Taken at an event.)

It's fun at first but can be absolutely backbreaking if you're doing it all day. Traditionally, you would NOT do any of this alone. You and your family might gather together -- or the entire little hamlet where you live might -- to work on this collectively.

Many hands make light work here.

In any case, once you get the outer shell cracked off the fiber, you then have to actually REMOVE this dead weight. You use a beating handle and a scutching board. Also fun at first but eventually exhausting.

This knocks the vast majority of the dead outer layer off; you can see the fiber emerging in her hands.

Then... you hackle the flax! This involves pulling the flax through another set of combs, which both arranges the fiber and breaks off smaller, weaker pieces.

You get different qualities of flax from different passes. First pass is called "strick," is generally 30"+ (76cm+) long, and is usually the softest.

Second pass is called "tow." It's about half the length -- and, at 15-18", is actually still pretty good.

You can see strick on the left in this photo and tow on the right. Flax processing terms we still see/use today:
- flaxen-haired
- towheaded
- to get ones' hackles up

And you have to do this enough to get pounds and pounds of linen so you can THEN spin it into thread -- thread that will become all sorts of cloth, such as for clothing and sails.

Consider all this effort needed just to make linen. Why was it worth it?

Because linen is amazing. It is a perfect fiber to put next to the skin -- it softens beautifully the more you wear it. It wicks moisture away. In heat, wet linen is natural A/C. In winter, it keeps you dry, which helps regulate body temperature.

It's also INCREDIBLY strong, since its natural staple length is up to 36"! This means you can spin it very, very finely and trust it won't break.

(Modern linen has all the great qualities of historical linen save for the fiber strength; to machine-process it, it's chopped to 6")

In any case, fiber has to then be spun up and woven.

People in Europe, before the 13th-14th century, would have done it on these tools:

- drop spindles
- warp-weighted looms
- backstrap looms

Just sit for a second and consider all the work that went into created the clothing you'd wear *under* the rest of your clothes.

Weaving, no matter the time period, is a meticulous and oft-tedious process -- you spend more than half your time setting up a loom to weave.

You can see why you wouldn't waste a SCRAP of fabric. (Which is why I absolutely SCREAM any time I see someone tear another person's clothes in a costume drama or historically-set production). You just crashed their car, cost-wise. What the hell.

NEXT UP: WOOL.

Oh man, do I love wool. Another miracle fiber, as far as I'm concerned.

Why wear wool? It's naturally water-shedding (so long as it has some of the lanolin in it). It's warm, of course. But its best quality by far: IT KEEPS YOU WARM WHEN IT'S WET.

That's right. You fell into a stream in the middle of winter and it's a 2-mile walk back to your home? Guess what, wool is going to keep you alive.

Plus, it's going to wick that water away, too.

This is why wool socks are amazing. Warm, dry feet all the time. A+ choice.

Wool, compared to flax, is a very different sort of hassle. You have to keep the sheep alive, of course.

Sheep need to be sheared every spring -- taking care not to do it too early, or else they'll be too cold and unable to stay warm.

(some sheep are every two years. Most wild sheep shed naturally, like dogs or cats.)

Can't shear too late, either, or they'll be at risk of overheating.

Shearing is good for sheep. Even little nicks are fine -- it's like getting a nick when shaving.

Every fiber has what's called it's "staple length." This is what it sounds like -- how long the fiber is before it pulls apart naturally. Cotton is generally around 3/4" (up to 3" for long-staple Peruvian or Egyptian), wool can be a couple of inches to over a foot.

There are a dozen qualities that go into considering sheep's wool, from crinkle to staple length. Some sheep have a single layer of wool, some have two coats.

Icelandic sheep, for example, have a warm, fluffy inner coat and a thick, water-repelling outer coat.

Icelandic sheep, btw, are the descendants of sheep the Norse (AKA Vikings) brought with them. They're a protected Heritage breed.

The Norse used to use the undercoat for weaving and the outer coat was tucked into the weaving to create fake fur.

This made a warm, water-repelling cloak, which was actually used as currency for a time! (Obnoxiously time-intensive to weave, by the way -- even more so than usual.)

Anyway. Wool is awesome.

After shearing, you'd pick out the most obviously nasty bits (sheep dung, burrs, etc.) and then soak it in a suint bath.

This involved soaking the wool in water and letting it ferment, basically. The lanolin (which is sebum, btw) + salt from sweat

would basically create its own soap and self-wash.

Seriously.

Look at the difference in these photos, taken 10 days apart.

That's Cotswold fleece, by the way. 15 lbs of wool from a single sheep. Cotswolds are a heritage breed, as well; brought over to Britain by the Romans. They have a slightly golden color to them and have a 13"-15" staple length -- they're gorgeous.

That water, by the way, is fantastic for your garden! It also stinks like the devil's own arse so I highly recommend doing this 100% outside if you can.

You then rinse the wool out & leave to dry. You have to be careful, when it's wet, not to agitate the wool or else it'll felt.

(I cheat and pop it into a large mesh laundry bag and put it in for a rinse-and-spin round in my washing machine. I can do this because it has no central agitator and I *specifically* bought this fancy model so I could process fleece easily.)

So, at this point, there are two different fiber prep methods on the table: carding or combing. Both are used to arrange the fibers so they're basically all lined up together -- which technique you use depends on the staple length. I find 6" to be the switching point for me.

You can see cards on the right side of this picture -- they look a bit like dog brushes (which is not an accident, btw).

There's a whole technique to doing it but you basically end up with fluff that is ready to be spun.

For combing, it's the same but WAY MORE METAL.

(Literally)

Again, specific techniques have to be employed here, but those combs are sharp as HELL and I definitely caught myself more than once with them.

But they do amazing work, turning that stuff into this:

If you're paying attention, you may notice that the combs look a lot like the hackles used in flax processing. That's not an accident. They're basically portable hackles -- great for getting fiber more or less aligned.

Look how soft the wool is now -- fluffy, airy, and open.

You may choose to dye fiber now or at just about any point in the process.

Then you get a-spinning and a-weaving.

(There are a lot of modern tools to help this process along, by the way. And there are steps I've skipped for the sake of space.)

So, now you've got your close clothes and some outer clothes -- maybe even a cloak! 99% of your clothing would likely be one of these two fibers.

"What about silk?"

Oh yes, silk. FIRST OF ALL, silk is another amazing fiber. Although it feels cool against your skin, it's actually amazingly warm.

Silk comes from the cocoons of silk worms. Each cocoon is comprised of a *mile-long* single strand of silk thread.

Silk is so ridiculously fine -- but also extremely strong and light. It's why parachutes are made from silk.

In the Middle Ages, silk was traded to Europe but not produced there. Its origin was a closely-guarded secret. Eventually, silk thread was sold for weaving.

Because of the Ottoman presence and trade with places like Venice and Florence, northern Italy became a hotbed of silk fabric production.

There's a reason the Silk Road was called that, after all.

Some places just got fabric scraps from China and India -- like the Norse.

The Norse traded throughout eastern Europe and parts of the Silk Road, by the way -- a 10th century jade Buddha was found in a Viking grave, along with numerous Allah-engraved rings, cowrie shells from the Indian ocean, Persian coins, and Chinese silks which were used for trim.

Silk is a great liner for wool because it's super-soft and super-warm and provides a great layer between your skin and the wool itself.

You do have to be careful, though -- bleach dissolves wool.

In any case, these are your three best fibers.

And I can tell you that after I spend a week (or even a weekend) in linen and wool, I actually actively CRINGE when putting my jeans and cotton shirts back on. So clammy.

Cotton makes you feel hotter when it's hot and colder when it's cold. It doesn't wick moisture well at all.

And since most cotton is an appallingly short staple, it is incredibly weak.

Sorry, everyone: cotton is a garbage fiber, as far as comfort is concerned. It's cheap (now) and that's about its only benefit -- which is legit, by the way. The cost of linen or wool or silk per yard vs cotton is a serious consideration and I get that.

"Starlight," you say, "I'm allergic to wool! What can I do?"

Oof, that sucks. First of all -- you'll need to experiment to figure out if it's the wool itself, the lanolin, or possibly modern superwash chemicals. People are allergic to different parts.

And if it's a contact allergy, you should be able to wear wool without touching it more than briefly (when putting it on), if you're careful to have at least a layer of a moderately-thick linen between you and the wool.

If it's a lanolin allergy, you can buy superwashed wool

If you have a superwash allergy, you can buy traditional wool.

If you're legit allergic to the wool itself -- including the scent, you may just have to skip it.

When I say allergic, I mean hives, red rash, breathing trouble, etc. Wool feeling "itchy" is prob not an allergy; that's you not being used to the feel of it against your skin. And different wools have different coarseness -- the finer the micron count, the softer it will be.

I have multiple friends in my reenactment groups that are allergic to wool in various ways. One person cannot touch any, at all, ever. Most of them require certain kinds of wool, processed one way or another. Some just keep them off their skin.

Anyway, why do reenactors use natural fibers rather than modern ones? Especially when there are specialty fibers that have been produced to be lightweight, water-wicking, etc.?

Because of fires, my friends.

If you're sitting around a campfire, cooking by a flame, etc. natural fibers are some of your best protection. They'll self-extinguish small sparks. They can easily be beat out. The fibers will ash, rather than burn.

Reenactors who have to use modern fibers steer clear of fires

Because those fibers are basically plastic and will melt like an army man in the microwave -- to your skin.

It's... not pretty. Modern tents are a serious hazard near flames, too; they'll go up like Roman candles in a heartbeat.

So, with the advent of electricity, we've not had to worry as much about the flammability of our clothing.

Anyway, I'm personally a big fan of linen and wool. I wear both as much as I can and my clothing is just so much more comfortable as a result.

To get my linen pre-softened before first wear: I soak the fabric for 24+ hours in a tub. I do long legths; linen has a memory for water and if you do this BEFORE heat-setting it, you can really reduce how wrinkly it will get.

This also helps to leech out any dye that may not yet be fully set. It's a process, for sure.

I then dry it. Depending on a few factors, it may end up being a bit itchy the first few times you wear it -- but with care, it will go soft pretty quickly.

I find that shifting my linen layers nightly and then washing them once every 4-5 wears is ample to keep them clean and smelling fresh. I have shifts in different colors so I can tell them apart. I might wear the same outer layer for two weeks straight -- which is very period.

Last year, I attended a week-long event where I wore the same woolen outer layer all week, along with a wool cloak and hood. It was cold and rainy and I was comfortable the whole time.

At the end of the week, I did NOT wash my wool. I let it dry, then beat out the dirt/dry mud.

The only piece of my reenactment garb that gets washed even semi-regularly is my linen head covering -- because it picks up the oils from my scalp.

I think I might wash my wool once every year or two, barring a catastrophic spill. Linen every 6 or 7 wears (sooner, if smelly).

Laundry before modern machines was an extremely long, tedious, and backbreaking process. You would not do it unless you needed to.

Anyway, I don't want to get too far off-topic.

I hope y'all have enjoyed this thread. I'll take questions if you have'em.

Some additional thoughts: if you have a wool allergy, here are some other fibers you could look to:

- mohair (from sheep)
- yak
- angora (from Angora rabbits, with the caveat that you should be mindful of how the hair was collected -- are the rabbits pets, or were they killed?)

I'm also a fan of bamboo, which has a lovely silky quality to it and is VERY sustainable. It's not going to be like wool, mind you, but still nice.

I'll need to do a thread sometime on weaving and spinning, obviously.

Alpaca is GORGEOUS and llama can be very warm, too.

You have alternatives if sheep's wool isn't possible for you.

You can buy so much fiber and fabric online these days, it's fantastic.

Not off the top of my head! Hemp is another fibrous plant and I haven't done nearly enough research into it to be able to say much. I've spun a bit and find it to be coarse and itchy, but that might just be me not being familiar with it.

https://twitter.com/MitosisTNT/status/1097601713492688896

Addendum: I also clearly need to do a pre-modern laundry thread soon. Most of y'all weren't here the last time I made one. :D

Addendum: I also flubbed and let my fingers get ahead of my brain. Mohair is from GOATS.