OT word of the day

Merino wool Botany wool

The most commercially important wool. Originally from Spain, now New Zealand and Australia produce most of the global supply. It is an exceptional quality, fine, soft wool. The finest grades are usually the wool used in blends with cashmere, silk, alpaca, and rabbit. It is stronger in the many characteristics(1)(2) that make wool an excellent clothing choice and, so far as I know, is the only "non-scratchy" sheeps wool.

(1) Why does that phrase make me feel like Yoda?

(2) Absorbs water vapor readily (think sweat), repels rain, breathes well, does not absorb oders readily, has great drape, and washes easily. You just want to avoid temperature shock with the stuff, so cold wash and rinse, and tumble or air dry.

Needle lace

Needle lace is simply lace made with a needle and thread. It is not made on a seperately created ground, nor does it incorporate braids or ribbons. It is generally done on a frame to which a high contrast piece of parchment or other durable non-brittle paper, or sometimes trash cloth, has been fixed, the pattern for the lace having already been drawn on the paper. The pattern outlines are then couched onto the paper, sometimes using varying thicknesses or numbers of strands of thread. When this has been completed, fill and decorative stitches are added, mostly staying above the paper, and the couched threads are covered with other stitches. When the section is completed, the couching stitches on the wrong side of the paper are snipped releasing the work. Alcenon and Venetian Laces are the best known of this type.

Pictures:

How truly exquisite. Thanks so much Nightmist. . In message , NightMist writes

Shoddy and Mungo

Shoddy is in essence recycled wool. Rags are shredded, respun, and rewoven, and the resultant fabric is Shoddy. The quality of shoddy would of course vary with the quality of the rags used to make it. If good quality soft spun rags are used it may well turn out to be of a better quality some lesser new woolens.

And yep this is where the term shoddy as used a a descriptive meaning poor quality comes from.

Mungo is the lowest quality shoddy. Generally from hard spun rags, it is sometimes of such low quality when the proscessing is finished that it must be felted to make a usable fabric.

Those were two of my favourite words when I was a kid (I used to read the dictionary for fun, mind). Turned out that the shirts we were issued with when doing army cadet training at school (this was in New Zealand in the 60s) were made of mungo or shoddy. They were some of the scratchiest, ickiest things I've ever had to wear. Eventually I flatly refused to do it any more on principle (PM Holyoake took NZ tokenistically into the Vietnam War, and I supported the Viet Cong) but we damn well should have had grounds for objection for being forced to dress in sandpaper.

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algin alginate Alginic acid Sodium alginate

Alginate is an extract of various seaweeds. It has a ton of uses. In textiles it has been spun into water soluble threads, used as a soluble foundation for embroideries, used as a size, included in starches, and used as a thickener in both dye painting and textile printing. By far printing is the largest use of alginates in the textile industry. Most soluble threads and sheets available in retail are PVA (polyvinyl-alcohol), which has better storage qualities.

OT note: Alginates are also used in dental impression material - you know the yucky pink or blue stuff you bite into for getting crowns etc just the right size and shape. Can't think of a textile link to tie in with that though.

Lizzy

So far as casting they have to use it for dental impressions because it is one of the few things that will work well that you can safely put in your mouth. It is also used to make life castings (making various impressions of people parts, hands, feet, bellies, faces, etc.), though I prefer moulage for that for assorted reasons.

It is used as a thickener a LOT. Start reading lables and you will find it and/or methocell (hydroxymethylcellulose) in tons and tons of things, from food to cosmetics to washing up liquids and more.

You find this stuff in almost everything.

NightMist

Spot Tack

Making a knot of sorts.

By machine set stitch length to zero (or your machine's equivilant) and go backwards and forwards over the same small spot a couple of times.

By hand just take a couple of stitches over the same few threads and tie as for a quilt, then wrap the thread through the stitches and pass the needle through the wrapping as for a french knot. Generally you want to pass the needle back through the sides of wrap before cutting closely, but that is a matter of choice.

Pineapple fiber Pina (the spanish N with the curvey) Abacaxi

Made from pineapple leaves, the fiber is removed by scraping the leaves by hand. In commercial textiles it is often combined with silk or synthetics. The resultant fabric has the look and much of the durability of linen, but is softer, more lusterous, and easier care. The fabric originated in the Philappines, though some small trade in it has developed in other pineapple growing countries, notably Brazil.

An article and some pictures of modern garments made of this fabric is here:

Beaver

You could consider this an early faux fur.

It is a heavy coating weight woolen fabric, that has been milled and napped. The nap is cut evenly and laid in a single direction, similar to the process for some velvets. It is lusterous, and quite intentionally made to look like beaver fur so much as is possible.

baldachin

Though the word has come down in time from what was once a "canopy of state", nowdays it mostly refers to beds. A baldachin bed is one in which the canopy is permanent, a structural part of the bed. It may be full or half, or sometimes smaller than half. It is somewhat fashionable both now and through history to drape the half or smaller versions to match or compliment the other bed dressings. Some versions of the full size are quilted on the visable faces with leather or luxury fabrics.

I've noticed that when advertising companies wish to make a modern bed with a canopy, especially when accompanied by curtain rails, sound pretentious they call it a "baldachin bed".

combed cotton

Cotton that is gone over with fine brushes after carding to remove more impurities, brittle fibers, and short fibers. This reduces the total volume of the carded cotton by as much as 15-20%, but what remains are the longer more durable fibers. Fabrics and yarns made of combed cotton are usually softer and more durable than those made from single carded cotton.

Ruche

To pleat, ruffle, or gather fabric into a specific form. Sometimes it is purely ornamental, sometimes it is an integral part of sizing the item.

The term is frequently incorrectly applied to any multiple pleating, gathering, ruffling, gauging, or smocking, all of which are unique in themselves.

Brilliantines Brilliantine

A light weight, lusterous, fabric with a cotton warp and cashmere or wool weft. Sturdier than it looks, it resists wrinkling, yet presses and shapes well, has very excellent drape, and it actually seems to resist wear-dirt. Consigned to use mostly as lining fabric for some years, it is enjoying a surge of popularity in garment making. An excellent choice for "activewear", summer clothes, and numerous other applications.

Crinoline

Originally a cotton warp crossed with horsehair in a variety of colours and designs. Labour-intensive work as each horsehair had to be placed in the cloth by hand. Now the horsehair is usually replaced by nylon, or sometimes another synthetic. Indeed often crinolines are available made entirely of synthetics or any assortment of blends. They may be a solid, mesh, or net weave, and are stiff. Often tulle is refered to as crinoline and used for the same purposes.

Nylon

The first commercially successful synthetic fiber.

It is a wholely manufactured fiber, a synthetic long chain polymer.

The first use it saw was in toothbrushes, though a whole host of applications followed primarily due to world war II.

The initial marketing of nylon fabrics was as a synthetic silk. When WWII caused a scarcity of silk, which had previously been the only fiber used for items like parachutes, nylon came into its own. It also caused something of a revolution in women's hosiery. Prior to nylon stockings were usually cotton, wool, or silk. The first nylon stockings in the US went on sale in 1940. They were only available briefly though, for as soon as the US entered the war all nylon was diverted to the war effort.

In the 1950's, manufacturers discovered that if they made the nylon fibers crimped, the resultant fabric would be elastic in character. This added a whole new dimension to the uses for nylon.

Nylon burns poorly, but does melt. The weak flame it produces is usually extinguished when the melted portion drops off the fabric. The fibers are smooth, nonabsorbant, and dry quickly. It is the strongest and most lightweight fiber in common use. It is somewhat dirt resistant, and easy to clean, though it will eventually pill. It is not affected by most common household chemicals, though chlorine bleach should be avoided. It does wash well with sodium perborate bleach (laundry borax).

Laundry Borax

This useful stuff is a common additive to laundry detergents, and is also sold as a stand alone laundry additive. In addition to laundry, it has many uses around the house, from general cleaning and deoderizing to repeling cockroaches and other insects.

It is one of the "greenest" hosehold chemicals, having a low toxicity and a minimal impact on the enviroment. The same chemical in laundry borax is often used in plant fertilizers. Useful to know since foundation plantings in particular can suffer from a deficiency of boron. In fact when last years soil test indicated that my garden was low on boron I just sprayed it with laundry borax in solution, about 1 tablespoon to 100 square feet is plenty.

Laundry borax is one of the few commonly available chemicals that can stop or reduce the action of chlorine bleach. It also enhances the action of standard soaps and detergents by acting as a water softener. It has it's own bleaching action as well, both oxygenating and to a lesser degree non-oxygenating. Since borax also acts as a corrosion inhibiter on metals it may help prolong the life of washers. My great gramma used it when she washed the silver after polishing it because she said it helped keep it shiney longer. YMMV

Yes, I have used this for years. I like the old fashioned look of the

20 mule team box. Didn't know about the other uses with plants and as a repellent. thanks for this info ;) [grow> Laundry Borax