it's too narrow for bed sheets

36" wide. And on reflection, it's a bit to ... exuberant to make clothing without approval from the recipient.

Lovely hand, cotton. Robert Kaufman Co. (on the selvage) Pillowcases maybe. (But I've got more than 5 yards)

Some kind of lightweight comforter? With a solid alternate.

Want to move this one out of the stash.

Reply to
cycjec
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If it has nice print, how about making dinner napkins and give out as holiday gifts of 6 napkins each? If you have embroidery machine, you can monogram as well.

Reply to
janesire

Just to mention, large sheets are rather a recent invention. Up until about the 1800's or so sheets larger than what we would call "twin" or perhaps "double" were made by sewing narrower lengths of fabric together with one long seam down the middle. When the sheets began to wear down the centre, the seam was opened up and the sheet turned "sides to middle", and sewn together again. Highly doubt anyone today would sleep on sheets made that way today though.

This also explains why vintage sheets in large or very large sizes go for vast sums, being that they are so rare and all. Oh, the reason for sheets being so narrow was simply looms were not invented yet that could produce very wide expanses of linen.

Candide

Reply to
Candide

They did have wider looms before 1800. Wool, for example, was woven up to 120" wide in the 18th C and fulled down to 60" wide for Melon cloth. Wider looms became more common when powered looms came in, but they were certainly about before then. It's just that for anything much more than 27" (common still for hand woven silk and Harris tweed), you needed two people and a MUCH bigger space!

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

The other way around -- looms had been invented which made it much easier and cheaper to make cloth, but only if the weaver could reach all the way across the weft.

The old-fashioned warp-weighted loom -- which persisted, for special purposes in backwoodsy areas, into the twentieth century -- could make fabric as wide as the beam you hung it from, but it was difficult to make very long pieces. The floor loom -- speculated to have arisen as a hybrid of the warp-weighted loom and the ground loom -- could make a fabric of any length, but it lost efficiency when the weaver couldn't throw the shuttle all the way across the warp in one go.

So narrow fabric was cheaper per square yard than broadcloth.

The floor loom was also amenable to being hooked up to water wheels and steam engines, which neither the warp-weighted loom nor the ground loom could manage, but that is a later story.

Joy Beeson

Reply to
Joy Beeson

Thanks girls, going to have to read over my source for my statement (The Book of Fine Linens), and see where I went wrong.

Candide

Reply to
Candide

Hence the revolution when the flying shuttle was invented. This could be propelled across a wider warp by a single weaver, so that cloth that had previously needed two skilled workers to produce now needed only one. In the cottage industry it was usually the men that did the weaving. Women spun the yarn (wool or cotton) and children carded and did other pre-preparation that needed small nimble fingers. Round here there are still weavers' cottages from before the industrial revolution. After the industrial revolution it was another story all together.

Lizzy NW England, where cotton was king.

Reply to
Lizzy Taylor

Don't know about today, but my mother used to "turn sides to middle" when the sheets started wearing in the middle.

Reply to
Margaret

Turning sheets, like turning collars and cuffs on shirts, has long gone out of fashion for the most part, along with mending. People just buy lots of things, much of questionable quality, and chuck it into the bin when it wears out.

Years ago, linens, especially those made of pure linen had a long history of use within a household. All bed and table linens were kept in good repair by mending/darning small areas before they went to the wash. When things got belong that, linens would be turned "sides to middle", and when that was no longer possible, large items were cut down for other uses. Sheets from the master bedroom might be cut down for the nursery or children's rooms. Failing that perhaps for use in the servants rooms, or perhaps the sick room or death bed. Trims, laces and the like were taken off and used again elsewhere.

When linens became of no use as sheets, they were cut down for use in the dining room as sideboard covers, or perhaps bread/roll basket covers, and so on. Soft worn in linens of no use for table were cut up into nappies, or sanis (cloth feminine napkins for those too young to know about such things), or bandages. Finally what was so torn up and in total rags, was sold off for use in making paper.

Who said the modern era invented recycling? *LOL*

Of course all tearing down and reinventing kept the lady of the house, and or her daughters busy with their needles.

Candide

Reply to
Candide

what an interesting story! i was watching "Gosford Park" on the TV last weekend, this story reminds me of that movie. how fascinating. amy

Reply to
amy

Some of the most comfortable sheets we had when I was a child in the 1930s had seams down the center, they were from the L.B. Price Co. It was during the depression, my DM would do the same thing Candide posted, split them in the middle and sew the outside edges together. That would almost double their use. Later, after I married, I sometimes did regular sheets like that. My children thought it was great, having sheets with seams down the center. After all, they had something that none of their friends had. And you know how much children like that. Emily

Reply to
Emily Bengston

My parents and grandmother worked in the local cotton mill in SC and they could sometimes buy unfinished ( was not dyed or printed) and unbleached muslin and grandmother would sew them into sheets with a seam down the middle. What they could buy had bad places, slugs, throughout the yardage. The sheets felt rough and I didn't like to sleep under them during the summer. Barbara in FL

Reply to
Bobbie Sews Moore

unbleached

Have tons of Pequot muslin sheets and pillowcases. While very heavy, find they are at their best if ironed smooth after laundering with a bit of starch in the rinse water. Thankfully my Pfaff ironer does them a treat, so saves much time with the ironing board. *LOL*

Reply to
Candide

An old mangle would make it even easier! A friend picked one up at an auction for $1.00.

Reply to
Pogonip

When my dad was still living he loved to do sheets, pillow cases and table linens on the mangle. Mom was terrified of the thing but dad found it very relaxing and we all had the lovely results of fresh ironed bedding. It was his "toy," Juno

Reply to
Juno

Ain't that the truth!

My mother too used to turn sheets side to middle and the quality of those sheets was superb in comparison to most modern sheet fabric.

In fact I was so impressed by them when I inherited them that I now only buy old fashioned, all white, all cotton sheets of what I call "hospital quality". They aren't cheap to buy but the quality makes them worth it. Everyone who stays here as guests now asks about those sheets and says how glorious they are to sleep in. I've now become a lifelong advocate of "Actil First Line" linen.

Reply to
FarmI

Think we are all on the same page. What I call an "ironer" is a device with roller and heated shoe plate that cloth is passed over or under to "iron"; like what one sees at commercial laundries.

To me "mangle" is something with two rollers that laundry is passed between after washing to squeeze water out.

Candide

Reply to
Candide

Reply to
Emily Bengston

Odd, I find Actil First Line sheets very rough and uncomfortable. Maybe they make different ones in different countries. I forget where you are I'm afraid: I'm in Australia.

Liz

Reply to
Liz

Type of "mangles" one is speaking of are not part of a washing machine, but what laundry was put through after coming out of the tubs when laundry is done by hand. Though I believe they are called "wringers" on the US side of the pond.

To me this is a mangle:

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is a (rotary) ironer:
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there is a type of "cold" mangle found in Sweden and other places:
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it comes down to what one is used to, eh? *LOL* Candide

Reply to
Candide

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