Tag Archives: history

Quick Fabric Blog

What About looms?

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Weaving as the practice of lacing grasses and twigs and branches and anything else that could be bent and interlaced together dates back as long ago as clothes and thread, about 30,000 years. Loom weaving came about approximately 12,000 years ago. So there is a huge gap between the technologies of thread and the technology of looms.

It is highly unlikely to think that our forebears did not think to weave thread they spun together in the same way they had learned grasses and branches could be woven. And the oldest evidence that they did apply weaving to string long before looms are found dates back to 27000 years ago, with a find where a long lost (apparently) linen woven fabric left an imprint on clay.

So, it is fairly obvious that people were weaving thread long before we have a record of it. But don’t think of it as modern cloth— or even a simple weave like burlap. If you have ever seen a friendship bracelet, you can see a type of weaving that can be done without a loom. Knotted and woven fiber could very possibly been used for clothes and embellishments as well as strapping long before looms came on the scene. Obviously, items such as these would have taken many hours to complete, but one thing our forebears had was time. I can’t see why such labor intensive items would not have been respected for the creativity and skill and time they would take to make. If you see the fairly recent outfit worn by Egtved Girl, you’ll see she was buried with a knotted and woven skirt. While she is only about 3300 years ago, her outfit could easily have been made with technology millennia before.

Weaving and knotting isn’t just for clothing and embellishments. String and the skills to manipulate it would have been used to make nets for carrying and trapping. String likely was also used to wrap things to make hand grips, for decoration, perhaps to mark property. And some archeologists point to the type and placement of selvages on some  imprints or woven remains as evidence of the existence of certain types of looms that we have yet to find remnants of.

Even if looms weren’t around before 12000 years ago, there were ways to weave that didn’t require formal equipment.

More on that next week.

Quick Fabric Blog

Quick Fabric Blogs: yarn and cords and twine oh my!

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It’s not hard to see how tying clothes around you, sticking sharpened bone or sticks through coverings to keep them from falling off easily, or poking holes in them and threading sinew to hold them on was a logical next step. While woven plant matter has not survived the archaeological record well, there is good reason to believe that people were weaving grasses, stems and leaves long before there was thread. Far more complicated than conditioning skins, these weavings could also be used as mats, coverings, shelters, shoes, bags, and carrying tools. It’s not too much of a stretch to see how a simply playing with grasses could lead to weaving a flat matt which could then lead to weaving a three dimensional item. Playing and working with these grasses could very well led to the disintegration of the grass into long fibers in a similar way that drying and pounding sinew gave long fibers to work with. Unlike sinew, these grass fibers were not strong on their own.

At some point, about 30000 years ago, someone playing with or working with grass fibers rolled them on something. By rolling the fibers over and adding more fibers to the roll as the old ones were used up, they developed the very first string, a technological revolution that is often ignored in history. Craftspeople speculate some one was fiddling with plant or animal fibers and was rolling them on their thigh while fidgeting. This would twist the shorter fibers into longer ones, and was very possibly the way thread (yarn, cord, twine, string)  was invented. While it is obvious that this fiber could be used to tie and lace and sew much like sinew, it probably didn’t take long to realize that this worked much better for weaving than sinew or strips of fur would.

I adore checking the history and evolution of words, as they can tell us so much about human history. The word for sinew, very likely the first material used for binding things by humans, comes from the Proto Indo European root word ‘sai’ which means to tie and bind. You can almost hear someone asking ‘give me that thing that ties’ and the hearer knowing exactly what was meant, an example where the thing is named after what it does.

Yarn and cord come from the Proto Indo European root word ‘ghere’ for intestines/ guts!

Here the word harkens back to what these items came from or replaced. It’s also why we call it our spinal cord, and why instruments (made of animal organs for a very long time) allow you to play ‘chords’.

String is from the Proto Indo European root word ‘strenk’ which means tight or narrow. To me, this implies that it is a later appellation and refers to the fineness of the thread as opposed to the material or technique used to make it or its purpose.

If you have spun, my small discussion may have made you say ‘you forgot to double it!’ Single cords were used for ages, but allowing the cord to twist back on itself makes for a stronger and thicker tread or twine. Thread literally means twisted (from the Proto Indo European root word ‘tere’  to rub or turn) and twine means doubled (from the Proto Indo European root word ‘dwo’ for two. All these words are very old, which is fitting for such an important invention and variations. I love seeing how the words changed so logically, and I assume the roots for the Proto Indo European for at least sinew and cord were carried by early explorers into the Levant.

Quick Fabric Blog

Quick Fabric Blogs: The earliest of the early

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Last week we talked a little about how humans have been adorning their bodies with various coverings. This week we will start to discuss the different types of coverings humans started to develop.

As far as archaeologists have been able to figure out so far (giving hard answers to such things is pretty impossible, especially as textiles and coverings are so hard to find intact in the archaeological record),   the earliest materials our ancestors used would have been long grasses, large leaves, fur, leather, and sinew. The very first non decorative items humans made out of these materials were likely shoes and carrying items. You can probably imagine how to tie leaves around your feet or even wrap food in leaves to make it easier to carry and stop it from decaying quite as quickly.

It’s also easy to imagine our ancestors carefully removing all the edible flesh from the animals they killed to eat. Scrapers have been found nearly everywhere, proving that early people were cleaning the skins of animals thoroughly. As untreated skins become hard and rot, but chemically altered skins do not, it probably didn’t take long for people to realize that using a common product all humans carried with them (urine) and working the skin to keep it flexible while it was curing, and people had fur: to line sleeping areas, tie to their feet, use as decoration, create bags to carry things in, form walls to block sun and wind, and bundle up in as it got cold. Making leather was simply scraping the fur off the other side.

Internal organs of animals also found uses not as food. Bladders were easy to hold liquid in when clean (and formed early balls for play when filled with air), and the tendons and the ‘silverskin’ of the animals, which were not very edible, were treated much as the skins were. They were cleaned and dried and them pounded until they were flexible and stringy. Between this sinew (which we still use today) and naturally forming vegetation, people were able to create items that could be shaped permanently or made into larger items by using sinew to stitch (the earliest needed found to date is 30000 years old) several pieces of fur or leather together. Knowing how much humans like to decorate ourselves, many archaeologists are sure these items were held together with rudimentary embroidery stitches and decorative items.

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Symbolism in Needlework compilation

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Sometimes when I am designing a piece, no matter how big or small it may be, I want to include some symbolism. Either as a special meaning, an inside joke, or merely to continue a tradition that has spanned millennia of embroidery, I want the item I am stitching to just say something *more*.

What I have had to help me in this has been volumes of mythology, the internet, and notes on little scraps of paper. But that has meant I spend more time looking for my notes or relooking on the internet for information I have already collected. I actually just did a ‘files that contain the word’ search in order to find some notes while writing this blog post.

So, here is a work in progress of thoughts I may want to symbolize in my stitching, compiled over years of studying embroidery and art, and far from complete. So if you also want to add a concept or a deeper meaning to your work, this will be at least a good place to start looking.
If there is a concept I have not yet touched on, please let me know. This is a work in progress and certainly not a finished collection.

 

Authority: staff

Beauty:  rose, shell

Betrothal: clasped hands, red carnation, ring

Blindness: beetle

Charity: bread, child, cornucopia, dove, fruit, heart, hen, lamb, lioness, pelican, phoenix, hen, stag

Cleverness: cat, serpent, squirrel

Compassion: milk

Courage: bees, eagle, leopard, lion, salamander, thyme, edelweiss

Cruelty: Bear, crab

The Dead: cherries, cherry trees

Death: crow, swan (good death), primrose (early death), butterfly (early death)

Deceit: cat, crab, daisy, duck

Devil: locust, dragon, serpent, pig, frog, goat, leopard, monkey/ape, owl, toad

Devotion: candle

Diligence: Bees, ants, human arms, chair, dolphin

Discipline: valerian (readiness), scythe, spider

Eternity: circle

Evil: crow, dragon, fly

Fertility: barley, cornucopia, lotus, strawberry

Friendship: basket of flowers, forget-me-not, garland of roses

Gentle: hare, hart, lamb

Gluttony: pig

Goal: castle

Gossip: parrot

Grace: swan

Greed: toad

Grief: anemone, tomb, urn, weeping willow

Happiness: basket of fruit, cherries, butterflies, holly

Health: cornucopia, basket of fruit, caduceus, cherry tree

Honor: Hyssop, anvil, castle, crescent moon (hope for)

Hope: bees, birdcage, crow, holly, anchor, bread and wine, crown, fish, lion, phoenix, rainbow, scallop shell, ship

Hospitality: candle, chair, pineapple, table, bread, wine, apple, barrel

Humility: donkey, camel, daisy, dove, lamb, ox, violet

Ill temper: bear

Immortality: phoenix, peacock, ivy, kingfisher, milk, pomegranate, scallop

Innocence: crown, flowers, garland, lily, strawberry, violet, lamb, child

Jealousy: crocodile, rat

Justice: lion, scepter, thunderbolt, scales

Knowledge: fountain, key, sun

Lazy: monkey/ape, snail

Liberty: butterfly, cat, hawk, bell, fish, wings

Life: fountain, water, well

Life after death: barley, pair of birds, butterfly, phoenix, wheat, corn, holly, ivy, lizard, octagon

Longevity: trees, apple, pine, oak, basket of flowers, deer, dove, elephant, hare, knot, marigold, stork, tortoise/turtle

Love: bird, bows and ribbons, dolphin, apple, basket of fruit or flowers, birds, carnation, heart, shell, swan, rose, tulip

Loyalty: dog, dove, anchor, elephant, goose, forget-me-not, kingfisher, key, pine, ivy, swan, violet, cumin, ring

Luck: clover, horseshoe, ship, vase of carnations, crow (bad), peacock (bad)

Lust: monkey/ape, toad

Marriage: clasped hands, dove, pair of ducks, ship, geese

Masculinity: horse

Melancholy: violet

Metamorphosis: caterpillar, butterfly

Mischief: squirrel

Moderation: clock

Mortality scissors (open)

Motherhood: basket, beehive, pink carnations, cow

Old age: grasshopper, oak tree

Overcoming trials: Acanthus, heron

Patience: donkey, ox, ram, rose

Peace: kingfisher, olive, apple, caduceus, cornucopia, elephant, flowers, lion & lamb, rainbow, instruments

Perfection: circle

Perseverance: ram, bee, cock, camel, hawk

Playfulness: butterfly

Pleasure: butterfly, moth

Power: bull

Pride: cock, falcon, hart, horse, mirror, ox

Prosperity: acorn, fruit, olive, pomegranate, moth (destruction of)

Protection: iris, thistle, woodpecker

Prudence: camel, hedgehog, anchor, deer, dolphin, elephant

Purity: iris, lamb, lily, peacock, harp, hart, lily, marigold, stork, strawberry, unicorn, milkmaid

Resurrection: lizard, swallow

Salvation: dolphin, well

Selflessness: bees

Self Reliance: acorn, duck

Servitude: chain

Sobriety/temperance: bees, camel, clock, elephant

Solitude: crow, hart

Straightforwardness: bull

Stealth: cat

Strength: acorn, bull olive, pillar (support)

Stubbornness: donkey, turtle (good)

Stupidity: donkey

Trust: robin

Truth: bell, lamp, well, heart, lozenge, raven

Vanity: mermaid, mirror, peacock, poppy (all looks, no value)

Vengeance: bear

Victory: garland

Watchfulness: candle, cock, griffin, dog, dragon, goose, hare, lion, peacock, weathercock

Wisdom: bees, book, lamp, lion, owl, serpent, elephant, fox,

Women: pincushion (virtuous), vase

Youth: primrose, sun, lamb