I have always liked fiber and assorted yarn. I am like a child in a candy store whenever I go to the yarn store. The hanks of fiber arranged by color mesmerize me, calling for me to bring them home, to see what I will create with them. I love how the yarn store is organized by color and wool textures. They challenge me, taunting me, begging me to turn the colorful skein into a one of a kind handcrafted creation. Will this colorful skein of yarn become knotted to make an afghan, a sweater, socks or hats?
The combinations are endless but lead to the great debate among yarn enthusiast, do I knit or do I crochet? Knitting is completed in rows and follows block construction, where as crochet can travel in any direction and takes on a shape of its own.
Knitting has a rich history dating back to pre-Columbian times. The art of knitting became popular in America during World War 1. The November 24, 1941 issue of Life magazine featured a cover story on “How to knit” encouraging women to help in the war effort by hand knitting garments for men at war. (Becker)
There is something rhythmical by taking those two needles into your hands and casting on the yarn to create a wonderful piece of fabric. Just think with only two stitches, the knit stitch and the purl stitch you can create a variety of patterns, magically right before your eyes.
Knitting needles are typically made from aluminum, plastic, bamboo, or wood. Sizes range from 2 mm in diameter to 25 mm in diameter. (Craft Yarn Council of America) Depending on the gauge you seek for your fabric will determine the size of the needles you will use. Different types of yarn require different needles. I found when working with wool, the bamboo needles provide for a ...
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When it comes to handcrafting a knitted piece, I am always reminded that knitting can be done by machine. Man has not been able to figure out a machine that can duplicate crochet stitches making crochet a unique craft that can only be done by hand.
Works Cited
America, Craft Yarn Coucil of. "Yarn Standards." Brochure put out by Craft Yarn Council of America. Gaston: Craft Yarn Council of America, September 2008.
Bardum, Better. The Crochet Stitch Bible. London: Quantro, 2004.
Becker, Paula. Knitting for Victory. 19 August 2004. 8 December 2009 .
Manx, Ariel. The Difference between Knitting and Crochet. 23 January 2009. 8 December 2009 .
"PressReleaseSpider - Crochet webiste sheds light on the ..." The History of Crochet" . 8 Dec. 2009 .
On the twenty-first of August, our Wearable History class took a trip to downtown Bowling Green, to visit Mosaic Confinement Studio. The studio had an old-fashioned vibe, and was like a vintage-garment haven. There, we were asked to choose a piece that we thought was vintage, identify the time period it actually came from, and also take some additional notes on the style and the garment’s details. After searching through multiple racks, the first piece I found was a lace blazer. It turned out to only be vintage-inspired, so I went searching again. I came across a few other pieces, but nothing was really jumping out at me. Eventually, I came across a lavender dress that immediately made me think of Julia Roberts in “Mystic Pizza”, and I knew I found my garment.
Through out the ages some of the most impressive feats of blanket weaving has been produced by the Navajo people. One of the most beautiful styles that the Navajo created are the "chief blankets". These blankets have played a extremely important role in the survival of their people with the coming of Western society and are still continued to be made to this day
Fabric that came from Europe costed as much as the equivalent to the garment itself. It became less expensive to make your own fabric than to buy it. “Producing one’s own clothes . . . meant weavin...
“her needle-work was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band; it decked the baby’s little cap; it was shut up, to be mildewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead” (57).
Fiber is a threadlike material that can be found in a natural or manmade form. Natural fibers derive from various animals, plants and can even be produced by insects. These fibers have been in use since prehistoric times and are currently produced today. The most common natural fibers used are linen, wool, silk and cotton. They have been woven together to create fabrics for clothing and other items. A natural protein fiber, called wool, was discovered before 10,000 B.C.E. and woven into cloth by 1900 B.C.E. Wool comes from predominantly sheep but is also found in other animals such as, llamas, alpacas, camels and goats. Tribes in North Europe spun wool using a crude spindle, which is a stick with a stone or clay ring connected to the end to make yarn. They also made wool into cloth by weaving the thread in a criss cross style. Some humans 8,000 years ago had domesticated sheep specifically for the production of wool and other uses. In 4,000 B.C.E. the city of Babylon also known as the “Land of Wool”, had bought and sold woolen cloth which was important to their society. Over the years spinning and weaving machines were constantly improved like the spinning jenny built in 1767 with many spindles placed side to side allowing it to operate 120 spindles at once. Weaving wool became more machinery based rather than using the traditional manual weaving (“History of Wool”, n.d.). In order to create the fiber wool, there is a process of cutting the hair from the animal which is usually done manually by shearing specialist. After cutting, the sheared wool is cleaned and brushed to straighten out the fiber strands by hand. The wool is then placed into a carding machine where it goes through many bristled rollers and roved. The carding process separates the wool into small pieces and cooled in spools at the end of the machine. Soon the wool is spun into yarn and woven into cloth. Before this machinery process, many women known as spinsters took on the task of turn wool into cloth manually. Wool is commonly used to create sweater garments and coats for cool weather (“History of Fibers”, n.d.). The Fiber repels water well and fabric feels dry in damp or wet weather. A downside to wearing wool is that it attracts moths and carpet beetles that feed on the fabric.
Corset makers by the sixteenth century then changed the process of making corset by introducing a thin piece of whalebone in between two layers of corset material which was like a knitting needles. “The whalebone corset was much more confining than the paste-stiffened one and often worn in conjunction with other undergarments that further exaggerated the female shape” (Woodward).
Due to James Kay’s invention of the flying shuttle, there was a great imbalance in the 1730’s between weavers and spinners. Kay made it possible for weavers to quickly produce the amount of fabric that was demanded, but the spinners were still unable to make thread t...
Their duties included gathering cedar bark, preparing the yarns and weaving the blankets, a process that all together would take about a year. In order to spin the woman would have to loosen the wool from the mountain goat hide by wetting and rolling the hide then pushing the wool off with her thumb and fingers. To card the wool she would have to be sitting with outstretched legs with wool piled to one side to draw the wool while feeding it to her other hand. The blanket was then woven on a warp-weighted loom where the weaver usually sat or kneeled in front of it. The blankets were woven entirely with their fingers. No other device was used. This finger-weaving process was called twining. According to the Sheldon Museum and Culture Center, typically the warps of these blankets were never dyed but the wefts contained natural dyes that created yellows, dark browns and green blues. Preparing these yarns is a long, strenuous process, requiring up to six months of preparation, dyeing, spinning, and plying as we saw similarly in the documentary “Weaving Worlds” about the Navajo
Although there are many types of quilting, there are three common types identified as whole cloth, piecing, and appliqué. The whole cloth technique uses only one piece of white fabric for the top of the quilt – usually, to show off the quilter’s fine stitching (Wilson 9-10). Piecing refers to sewing pieces of cloth together to make the quilt top. At first the pieces were sewn together haphazardly, but as collections of scraps grew, quilters began piecing colorful patterns together to form an accurately perfect square. Some of these had as many as 1600 small patches in a single quilt (Hechtlinger 61-62). Appliqué is the sewing of small cutout fabric shapes onto a background of another fabric laid down in a decorative design. This technique, often used to depict stories and ideas, has been used for hundreds – if not thousands – of years (Wilson 10-11). The oldest known appliquéd piece of quilted material was discovered in Asia. The floor of a Scythian chieftain’s tomb, found between 100 B.C. – A.D. 200, contained a quilted material that included finely detailed appliquéd animals. Therefore, the techniques used today in quilting are at least 2000 years old, with some of the patterns and designs being ...
Today weaving is a very lucrative business. Over the past 10 years the hair extension market has developed remarkably and there are more weaving techniques than ever. Growing up I can remember my aunt Jeannie, my mothers’ sister adding a hair extension ponytail made out of synthetic hair to me and my cousin Yalena, Marys’ daughters’ hair. Synthetic hair looks similar to human hair but is made out of monofilament fibers, polyfilament fibers, acrylic or polyester. She would brush our hair into a single ponytail with gel, spritz, and using rubber bands secure it. Next she would make a French braid using the synthetic hair and with a rubber band tie it to the ponytail. Then the hair left out from our ponytails was wrapped around the braid and
Most royalties consider wearing a crochet product symbolize wealth and power. During these days, crocheting and knitting is the pleasure of many people. It has developed as an art of creating very good crochet crafts and designs.
Oils, balls, swabs, bandages, tissue, paper, napkins, diapers, socks, underwear, shirts, shorts, sweaters, pants, coats, towels, linen, cushions, drapery, upholstery, rugs, carpet, comforters, mattresses, insulation, filtration, and many other things that are used daily by everyone are composed of, or inspired by cotton. Cotton is a soft, fluffy, naturally occurring fiber plant that can be processed into an array of materials and goods.
Weaving is a common thread among cultures around the world. Weaving is a way of producing cloth or textile. Today we have machines that weave large-scale textiles at cheap prices. Production of cloth by hand is rarely engaged in today’s Westernized societies. Not many people are thinking about how the fibers are actually constructed to make their clothes. However, in other cultures across the world the tradition of weaving still exists. By comparing three cultures that continue weaving as a part of their tradition we can see similarities and the differences between them. The reasons that each culture still weaves vary, as do the methods and materials. The desired characteristics of the cloth also vary around the world as each culture values different aesthetics.
Fabrics can be made of natural and synthetic materials. Natural fabrics, like cotton (NY Fashion Center) for example, are found here on earth while synthetic fabrics are manmade (MV Styles). There are many distinguish ways to determine if a fabric is natural or synthetic. Each fabric is different in its own way due to it reaction to heat, its odor, residue and chemicals (MV Styles). Fabrics are seen and used every day and in every way. Synthetic material has been pushed more into the picture because it much easier to make and the cheapest to buy. Synthetic materials are sometimes made form fossil fuels like coal. Cotton and Broadcloth are natural fabrics; Polyester is synthetic and Flannel in a synthetic blend with cotton. Fabrics are made up of fibers which have their own chemical structure, which determines their classification. Polymers make up the fibers (Ball-Deslich and Funkhouser). Since cotton is natural, it comes from a natural cellulose fiber with the polymer of glucose (Cotton). Polyester is synthetic which can be classified as saturated or u...
From 2005 the textile segment has been made up of 2 companies, transforming raw materials into fabrics, from spinning to finishing and ennobling. Handicraft product quality and technological research development characterize this business segment which works with internationally recognized names of the apparel and fashion industry.