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History of Fabric, Pt 1 - Ep 1
299 Plays5 years ago
Have you ever looked at a piece of knitting and wondered, “How did they figure out how to DO that with just two needles and string?” Whether you’re a picker or a thrower, those techniques had to come from somewhere, and their origins may surprise you.
Rachel Roden and Heather Boyd look at knitting techniques with the eyes of designers, through the lens of archaeology: each episode travels the world to dig up and discuss a different technique, and then applies it to a clever pattern designed by Rachel.
LinksTo get your copy of the pattern, and knit-a-long head over to Rachel’s pattern store on Ravelry (https://www.ravelry.com/designers/rachel-roden)To get the yarn Rachel recommends, head over to Jimmy Beans Wool (https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/BichesetBuches/LePetitLambswool.asp?showLarge=true&specPCVID=91487)ContactRachelRavelryInstagramTwitterFacebookWebsiteHeatherInstagramRavelry
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Transcript
Introduction to Historical Yarns
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to the Historical Yarns podcast, the show where we talk about knitting from the past and bring it into the present. Welcome to episode one. I'm Heather Boyd with my co-host, Rachel Rodin, and today we'll be talking about the history of fabric and fabric making techniques.
Origins of Knitting and Fabric Making
00:00:35
Speaker
So Heather and I are super interested in the history of knitting, of course. That's why we've created this podcast. But knitting is really just like one aspect of fabric making. And there are so many different ways to make fabric, different techniques, different machines even out there that make fabric for you. And we decided we wanted to start this off by talking about kind of the overall history of fabric and fabric making. So we're going to go like way back to the beginning here.
00:01:06
Speaker
As you can probably imagine, making fabric started with people just wanting to be warm, right? What's the first thing that you reach for when you feel cold? Especially in like Europe and Russia and like those Northern hemisphere areas. Oh my gosh, they probably layers, layers, layers, right? Exactly. So looking back at the origins of fabric, it all started about the stone age, which is over a hundred thousand years ago. Rachel can give you a better timeframe, probably as an archeologist.
00:01:35
Speaker
But that's basically all you need to know. It was a really long time ago. And people didn't have a lot of technology back then. They had very few tools. So the way that they made their first fabric was just by taking some wet fibers and mashing them together and probably stomping on them and rolling them around until they became one cohesive mat of fabric. And like everything else, I mean, I would imagine they probably came upon that by accident.
00:02:02
Speaker
Rachel. I was just having like this mental image of like somebody finding like a tuft of wool that was stuck to of you know a tree or something and then they just accidentally got it wet and then it they matted it and like oh what yeah this is useful. I was thinking maybe they let their their sheep or whatever animal that they had go in the water and then tried to dry them off or rub them too hard and they're
00:02:28
Speaker
Their fibers matted right on the animal. Yeah, yeah, because I've totally seen that in pictures of sheep that have yet to be sure. And they have big old mats down where they've rubbed on the ground and stuff. So maybe they saw that and they were like, huh, how can we put this to good use? Yeah, I bet you're right. I bet they did. I bet it happened in lots of different ways because there is a lot of evidence that it happened in multiple places all around the world, anywhere that they needed to be warm and they needed fabric.
00:02:55
Speaker
And you know what? They probably were doing things with the fabric other than making clothes too because it's just a useful material to have for whatever reason. Maybe they wanted to carry things around, you know? Have a blanket to sit on. Yeah, exactly. So lots and lots of reasons it happened or it developed in a lot of different regions simultaneously from what evidence that we have anyway.
00:03:17
Speaker
And that's another clue that it probably arose from some sort of human common sense, right? Yeah. It's not like people disseminated information about how they did this felting. They just kind of came upon it by themselves. Yep. So one thing that's interesting about felting, though, is it's still done basically the same way. You get fabric fibers wet and you mush them together and you rub them or you apply heat until they fuse and it makes a pretty sturdy fabric. I mean, I know that people make shoes from
00:03:46
Speaker
Felted? Yeah, I made a pair of felted slippers. You sure did. Bring your dad, right? Well, yeah, I did them for my dad and my brothers and my husband. And I also made a pair for me, too. Now, you knit those, right? I knit them first and then felted them. But it's the same idea, though. You can take a wad of fiber and felt it, or you can knit it or crochet it first and then felt it. I once met a lady who had blue ribbons from all the Vermont state
00:04:14
Speaker
competitions for her felting art. And she would take a big mat and she would make these tapestries almost with just tiny bits of felted fabric with the combination of just rubbing it with her hands and using small needles. Like the needles to felt. Yeah, because you can get like really precise application using the needles. I haven't done too much of it. Like I think as far as I've gone is like making little balls out of it. You can string it on the guard.
00:04:46
Speaker
But that's as far as I've gone. Well, anyway, felting is where it all began and we've come a long way since then, but we've kept felting as a pretty useful technique that's still used for functionality and for artistic purposes. Not so much for clothing these days, it seems like, but definitely for decorative purposes.
00:05:06
Speaker
Although some hats and things are made from very thin felt and stuff. That's true. You're right. It's not the most comfortable fabric to wear. It's all stiff. It's a little scratchy sometimes. But yeah, it's neat. Yeah, but they were figuring things out. People will always find a newer and a better way to do things.
00:05:24
Speaker
It seems as though the next development in fabric making is weaving.
Development of Weaving Techniques
00:05:29
Speaker
And they, of course, had to figure out how to make the fiber first. So they're spinning it. I didn't really look too much into the history of spinning, but it all happens sort of around the same time where they figure out how to spin fiber into yarn, and then they use that to weave and make fabric on a loom. And of course, spinning is just the technique of taking individual fibers and making them into one long string.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah, when I was doing archaeology, we would find spindle whorls every once in a while, which is like the little, I think it's like, I don't know exactly how it works, but it's like the weight on the spindle that would help it spin properly to make it into the yarn. Yeah, to make the yarn actually hang down.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's really cool. What were they made of? Do you remember? Oh gosh, this has been quite a few years now. It was when I worked in Peru that I found a bunch of them and I can't remember now. I think they were shell. I was going to say something that could be carved or modified in some way. Yeah, it was super neat. That is really cool. Yeah.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, so weaving is the next development in technology and it seems like it started pretty simple on a loom. Like you can kind of make anything out of a loom because you're really just passing the threads underneath each other to make and make the warp and the weft where they're going over and under each other. The warp is like the lengthwise and then the weft is going under and over the lengthwise threads.
00:06:55
Speaker
Um, and you can do that. Like there's very, very complicated looms obviously these days, but in the beginning, like it was really just, you know, having a way to have a long length and then going under and over those threads to make your, your fabric. So it was, could be very, very basic. And that's how they made their, their first fabric and turned it into clothing. Probably just a basic square frame with movable parts, like very basic movable parts.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, you can even do it just on a frame too. Like if you're doing it by hand, you can just string across a frame and then go under and over those threads by hand to create the actual fabric. Kind of like a pot holder loom. Do you remember doing those when you were little? I do, with like those stretchy elastic things. Yeah, it was just a square. And you lit, you know, you did all the
00:07:44
Speaker
strings going in one direction and then took a hook, I guess, and pulled them through the other direction. Yeah, yeah, I totally did that. That was like, yep, the craft of the 90s, right? Or 80s even. Probably. You're aging us, Rachelle. I know, sorry. My bad.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, so that would be how the looms developed there, but of course it's come a long way since then and it's still, I think it's probably still like the main way of making fabric these days. Most fabric is woven and it's just so versatile. Like you can use a loom with almost any type of fiber to make a whole different
00:08:24
Speaker
type of fabric. I mean, you know, from fine to coarse, right? And then you can even take that fabric and cut it and make clothes from it. So it really is probably the most versatile thing that we have and capable of being automated, right? So anything that's capable of becoming faster and easier for humans is the thing that's going to stick.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a dream of mine because I do a little bit of weaving. I have like a small floor loom and my dream is to like create fabric on my loom and then cut that fabric up and sew it into a garment. One of these days I'm going to go start to finish. I'm going to make my own fabric. I'm going to cut out the pieces and sew it into something that I can actually wear that won't like fall apart on my body. It'll, it'll happen. We will. Yeah. And then we'll make another podcast out of it. Yeah, totally.
00:09:12
Speaker
I'll just sit there recording you about that. Yeah, you'll be narrating like, oh, well, she messed it up again, so she's going to re-cut that piece. She's weaving. She's still weaving. Still weaving. Yeah, these crafts, they're not the quickest things, especially when you're doing them by hand. So that's OK, though. It's a labor of love. Yeah, and it's about the reward at the end, right? I mean, to have something that you made yourself from scratch.
00:09:39
Speaker
I know a lot of knitters who have that dream of the sheep to shawl experience where they get raw wool and they cart it and they spin it and they make their own yarn and then they knit a shawl from it, but I know very few who've actually done it. I can't name a single person that I know. I think only one. Really? I think only one person, but I don't think her shawl was finished and she's like 70 years old.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah. So you know. I know. It's time consuming. It is. But it's just that feeling of achievement, you know, to make your own clothing is really, really cool. So anyway, so yeah, getting back to the weaving. So, you know, there's lots of different fibers out there. And of course, the origins were using natural fibers. So
00:10:22
Speaker
just things that they could find and turn into fiber. I mean, they would turn anything into a fiber that could be woven back, you know, anything that was easily found. So in Egypt, we had a lot of linen, flax, plant fibers, palm, things like that. China, of course, everybody knows that's where silk comes from. Japan hemp and bark fibers, bark fibers. How does that work? Do you know? Well, I recently
00:10:50
Speaker
was at the San Diego Zoo and they had an exhibit about in different indigenous cultures, like not just in Japan, I'm not sure exactly how they do it there, but some trees, you can peel away the tough outer bark and there's a thin layer of bark underneath that is actually almost as flexible as fabric already. And so in several different aboriginal cultures, they've found evidence of
00:11:15
Speaker
this tree bark inner bark that was taken out and made more flexible by washing and beating it and then it was painted or decorated in another way and used as fabric. So I'm guessing it's something similar to that and anything that you can beat or manipulate or wash until it's soft and flexible you can weave with.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, in addition, we've got cotton coming from the Philippines and then wool is, of course, that's like the fiber that we know and love. And that came much later. It's about 3000 PC and it was developed in Europe and England. I imagine that's because sheep are native to that area. Yeah, native to that area. That's what I would imagine.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah. And probably it took a little longer to develop the technology to work with those fibers. Oh, sure. I mean, you know, cause that, I feel like that's a little bit more involved than just taking plant fibers and, and starting to work with it. Yeah. Um, because with sheep, I mean, you have to grow it. You have to cultivate a certain type of fiber that can be woven. You have to know how to shear it properly and get the right fibers, you know, the finest ones, card them out and then make
00:12:25
Speaker
Set up to spin. Spin it into your head. That's a lot of work. But to imagine that they did it, you know, on a cyclical basis. I mean, the sheep have to be shorn every year. And anyway, so yeah, probably the reason it came later was because technology had to catch up to it. Yep. Yep. That totally makes sense.
00:12:48
Speaker
One
The Silk Road's Influence on Fabric Making
00:12:48
Speaker
thing I found when we were looking into this stuff is the Silk Road really helped connect these different regions and share both information and the actual products themselves too. The ways to spin these different fibers and then weave these different fibers develop differently in different regions around the world.
00:13:10
Speaker
When the Far East and the Middle East finally got connected, this information started going back and forth and products going back and forth. You really see that explosion of different types of fabric and different types of weaving and more intricate stuff happening when these different places get connected and the information starts getting shared. Crossover. Yeah, I think that's really cool.
00:13:31
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, so we're gonna go into the actual development of knitting, but first we're gonna take a quick break. Welcome back to episode one of the historical yarns podcast. And so far we've been talking about the history of fabric making and specifically weaving, and now we're gonna move on to hand crafts, which includes knitting, crocheting, tatting,
00:13:57
Speaker
all kinds of different techniques that people developed by region and over time to make fabric by hand. Yeah, to make fabric in their homes and not need any big equipment, really. So it looks like, from our research, the very first type of handicraft using a needle was a very special one called Nala binding that the very earliest examples have dated back to 6500 BC.
00:14:26
Speaker
And they've been found in Israel, Denmark, Egypt and Peru, but also in the Nordic countries. And it produces a fabric that's very similar to knitting. In fact, at first glance, people thought it was knitting until they began to kind of deconstruct it and see that it was instead of being made from one long segment of yarn.
00:14:46
Speaker
It was made from very short segments of yarn that are looped in a similar way to knitting and then spliced, which means the ends are just joined invisibly or nearly invisibly. Yeah. I thought that that was so interesting when I was reading about that, that they were kind of sad even that they had these really old like socks, I think it was from Egypt that they thought for the longest time were the oldest examples of knitting. And then somebody looked at it a little closer and they're like, oh, wait, nope.
00:15:22
Speaker
So now the binding was actually done with one needle instead of two, which is remarkable when you think about it that someone could take just one needle and make the sort of loop on loop.
00:15:35
Speaker
fabric that looks so similar to knitting. But the way that they did it was, as I stated before, just taking short sections of yarn and looping them under and over each other, around each other, and then splicing the ends like the loops were actually pulled all the way through. So the needle looks almost like a very big flat sewing needle with a hole in
00:15:58
Speaker
the opposite end of the point. And you can actually Google it and see YouTube videos of people practicing it today. So they're still keeping the tradition alive. Yeah. It's so interesting because it sounds like it
00:16:14
Speaker
Looks a lot like knitting the finished product does but the technique is actually a little bit more like sewing because of the way you're looping it around and you've got your you're actually thread it onto the eye of a needle and then pull it through so Really interesting makes me want to learn yet another craft
00:16:34
Speaker
Although, I don't know, all those ends. I mean, you know, I hate ends. I know, even in ends is the worst. Although splicing is not so bad. Yeah, that's true. So if you have a little, like, cup of water there and you splice them together... Why, you're not gonna spit splices? Well, maybe not that many. Yeah. I'd run out of spit. Yeah, that's true.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, so it seems as though Nala binding is the precursor to the crafts that are a little bit more prevalent these days, like knitting and crochet and even like tatting and some of the other handmade fabric techniques.
00:17:10
Speaker
So let's talk about knitting because that's what we're really here that you know our passion for knitting is what really brought us in here. So like I said the earliest examples of knitting come from 11th century Egypt and they had thought that there were some earlier ones but it turns out they were nulla binding instead so
00:17:27
Speaker
The earliest examples they are for sure 100% are knitting are from 11th century Egypt and I believe that they are socks which totally makes sense because knitting makes such a nice stretchy fabric and when you want something to fit tightly like a sock it's really the perfect fabric.
00:17:45
Speaker
and not have holes, right? I mean, we want kind of a dense fabric. Yeah. Cause you're walking on it essentially. Right. So holes would get to be pretty uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. So the old English word, Oh gosh, saying Natin. You want to take a stab at that one? Nitin. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I shouldn't be allowed to try to pronounce things. Who really speaks old English these days?
00:18:14
Speaker
Oh my gosh, somebody does. Somebody does. They're going to tell us what they do. Oh, I know. Right. We'll get a call. Yeah. And they'll tell us we also pronounced it wrong. Yeah. Speaking of pronouncing things, we don't really know how to pronounce Nala binding. We just saw lots of different ways to do it. And we decided to go with Nala binding because that seemed to make the most sense to us. Yeah. Well, since no one else can agree, I figured we could pick the one we wanted. Yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
But the old English word knit in means to knot. And that's basically what you're doing in knitting is using one needle to hold a bunch of loops and then another needle to manipulate those loops and bring new loops up through them, almost like you would with a knot, but not tying it off. And so you have these, this mesh type fabric of loops hanging on loops that you can manipulate in a bunch of different ways.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's super portable. You can carry it around with you while you're tending your sheep or whatever it is that you're doing day to day. That's what shepherds used to do, used to sit out there knitting. Yeah, I saw this great picture or illustration of a shepherd sitting out there watching a sheep and knitting along.
00:19:18
Speaker
It's great. You got to fill your time, right? Well, knitting will certainly do that. Yeah, that's for sure. But yeah, it's very versatile. You can make lots of different types of fabric, thick, warm, thin, light, whatever kind of garment you need to make. You can use knitting to make that the perfect fabric for that.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, and it's pretty remarkable that you don't really need a lot of equipment. You just need to change your needle size according to your yarn size and you can make all these variations just by changing those two little things.
00:19:50
Speaker
So I came across some archaeological information when we were trying to figure out when the earliest known samples of the stuff have been found. And of course, like I said, Egypt is the earliest and then it did make its way over into Europe. And it seems as though it was Muslim knitters that were employed by the Spanish royal families and
00:20:10
Speaker
They were the ones who brought knitting into Europe and it spread from there so they know this because they found goods and tombs of these Spanish royal families and They figured out that the connection is from these Muslim knitters that were employed to make the garments and other items for for them So I thought that was kind of a neat connection. That's how it spread into Europe. Yeah
00:20:32
Speaker
That's not what most people would assume, I feel. They probably think that it actually started in England or somewhere in Britain where they have all the sheep, right? Yeah, and it's become such an important tradition in a lot of the English and Scottish cultures.
00:20:50
Speaker
the fact that it actually began in Egypt and came in from, from that direction is interesting. And I'm sure they were making stuff out of different fibers than wool too. They probably brought their cottons and whatever else they were using in Egypt with them. So yeah, so the other, we do know that it spread from there because they've found evidence of it all over Europe, both actual pieces, but you know, textiles degrade really badly over time. So they don't have a lot of physical examples.
00:21:16
Speaker
But what they do have are like tax lists basically that show that the goods were spreading across Europe. So I thought that was really neat. It's unfortunate that textiles don't hold up very well over time, especially in like a really wet place like Europe is. But at least they do have these tax lists that show that things were that they were spreading across. And it looks like it was kind of in everyday use by about the 14th century. So.
00:21:42
Speaker
Okay. Good. Yeah. Yeah.
Evolution of Crochet and Tatting
00:21:45
Speaker
Knitting. It's taking over the world. Or at least your heart beating. Well, even though you can probably tell we're a little biased towards knitting and we do apologize for that. Um, it is going to be the focus of our next episodes of this podcast, but we do want to go over some of the other handcrafts that sort of sprung from Nala binding. And one of the more common ones is crochet, which like Nala binding uses a single instrument. It's a hook, not a needle.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah, it was called like a shepherd's hook in the beginning. Yeah, which I thought, I mean, it looks like a shepherd's hook, so it totally makes sense. Yeah, that does make sense. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of evidence about the actual origins of crochet and where it started, who invented it. In fact, the very first thing that they have that mentions crochets in 19th century
00:22:29
Speaker
pattern for a purse, which, you know, it probably developed way before that. We just don't have anything written down or you're saying actual articles of crocheted clothing or. Yeah. I saw the image of the purse because it was like an illustrated pattern and it actually looks fairly complicated. So, you know, they didn't start with the most complicated thing they could possibly make. They had to have developed it before that. Doesn't everybody start with a dishcloth?
00:22:59
Speaker
Like the wonkiest dishcloth ever? So we're admitting, right? Where your garter stitch scarf becomes like... Yeah, and it's probably too short because you were so tired of garter stitch by the end of it that it's more of like a little necktie rather than a scarf. I'm also probably skinny at one end and fat at the end. Yeah, for sure. I know my mouth.
00:23:19
Speaker
The first thing I ever crocheted was definitely like the most uneven washcloth you've ever seen in your life. It wobbles. I just definitely wobble. I bet your mom has that somewhere. Actually, I think I have it. It became a cleaning cloth. I think my mom has mine. My first crocheted one. Yeah. Because I taught her to crochet after that, which is like, you know, it's just a single stitch is not too complicated. Just a very single crochet. Right. And so she started making dishcloths from that.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah. But anyway, crochet has definitely evolved into another type of art form. I mean, and it's just like knitting. You can use different size hooks down to the needle sized ones that are so tiny that they draw blood if you pricked yourself with them.
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah, I saw like Irish crochet, I guess is really interesting because it actually looks a lot like the kind of lace that you can make with tatting or popping lace. Yeah. It's so intricate, really beautiful. And it's, it's crocheted technically. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
Well, that kind of leads us into one of the next techniques we did a little bit of research on, tatting, um, lace making. It's, it's done with a shuttle and actually I've never tried it before. So I can't really describe exactly how to do it. Maybe, you know, a little bit better than me, but my aunt, my late aunt, um, great aunt, she used to do it and it was one of those things. It was her thing, right? Like, I mean, you, I
00:24:44
Speaker
Everybody has a grandma who's always got her knitting with her, right? Like this is my great-aunt line and she always had her tatting shuttle and it really did look like a little, just a tiny little shuttle and just as long as your thumb probably and a little spool of thread fits inside it. And then the thread comes out through a pointed end and that's not the only type of tatting shuttle. There's also a long one that looks almost like a tube that you thread the thread through and do in the same way.
00:25:08
Speaker
you work with one length of thread and basically what she would do is make these loops and then go back around the loop almost like you would crochet into a ring, right? But you're using the shuttle and passing the shuttle back and forth inside the ring and then you can make loops on top of that and loops on top of that. So when you tighten it all up, you've got these bound loops with more bound loops coming off of them that make the sort of characteristic circular designs in tatting.
00:25:36
Speaker
So it's all based off of loops and then coating those loops in more thread. And it is like super skinny thread, like sewing thread. Yeah, it's like sewing thread. So it's really, really fine work that you're doing with that. And it's even hard to find anymore. It's one of those that it doesn't get practiced a lot. And so if you're looking to do tatting, you're going to have to do some actual research on how to find the materials. Yeah.
00:26:00
Speaker
But it does make a really beautiful product. And I think they would do that a lot on edges, right? Yeah. Of doilies. Yeah, doilies. Yeah. Yeah. Antimacassars. You know, like back in the day when men wore hair gel everywhere, you know, we had to cover the furniture so they wouldn't ruin it. That's the whole purpose bar, I know. So anyway, that type of thing.
00:26:22
Speaker
the home crafts that you see is sort of adornment. Yeah, because tatting is not something you'd want to make a whole garment out of. It is so time consuming. And also it's, it's mostly holes. It's more holes than fabric, right? So it's best for edgings and things like that. I imagine it wouldn't be too comfortable to wear it either. So no, the finished product is kind of ropey. Yeah. Cause it's, it's been, it's the loop that's been passed over again and again and again with all these other loops of yarn. So,
00:26:48
Speaker
It wouldn't be something you'd probably want to wear, but it looks gorgeous on a doily. Yeah. I bet in the shabby chic revival, you could do some really beautiful stuff that would look updated and modern, but it's all really pretty. Okay, yet another craft I got to learn how to do. Awesome. That is my list. I do have some tatting shuttles. Oh my gosh. I have never mastered it myself.
00:27:11
Speaker
sort of clumsy fingers for very small for very small like fine crafts you know but you know over the years of knitting and even doing lace knitting I feel like maybe I've improved some so I might make another go at it let's do it we should do it together all right let's do it
00:27:28
Speaker
So, tatting and lace making, of course there's other types of lace making too, making broomstick lace, Battenberg lace, I mean all kinds of different little techniques to make that very fine, delicate fabric that's the hallmark of refinement.
00:27:46
Speaker
It's all built on that foundation of creating loops of yarn that you're pulling through. These are all just different ways of looping fiber together and some of them are more for
00:27:59
Speaker
like embellishment and others are better for making actual fabric. For background fabric, yeah. So I mean, I guess you'd say probably lace is just as much hole as it is fabric, right? So it's sort of that art of putting holes in your fabric in a decorative way, right? That's how I think about it when I do knitting, right? I mean, so.
00:28:15
Speaker
That's lacemaking. And then there's a separate type of fabric making called lacing, which is not lace, even though the name sounds that way. It's actually kind of like, do you remember rag rugs? Yeah. In the 80s. That hook to make rag rugs with that plastic frame. So it's this type of fabric making uses a backing and a tool to draw
00:28:40
Speaker
to pull it through. So you're lacing, I think it's called lacing because you're lacing it through essentially. That's where the name comes from. But you pull it through and you're creating a fabric that has a, a nap to it. So like it, gosh, how do you describe nap? It's like loose ends of fabric. Yeah. Yeah. So it thinks like velvet carpets have it tapestries, that sort of thing. So that's yeah, that's another, another fabric.
00:29:05
Speaker
So those are sort of the main categories, really, that we wanted to go over before we return to knitting.
Knitting: From Necessity to Hobby
00:29:11
Speaker
And then the next episode, we'll be going over knitting from the beginning. Yeah, because it sort of did this transition from being sort of a necessary skill to more of a hobby craft, do you say? So we're going to, in the next episode, we're going to go through that transition. Thanks for joining us today on historical yarns.
00:29:37
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening. You can find me on Ravelry and on all the socials as Rachel Unraveled. And you can find Heather on Ravelry as HeatherBoyd84. Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you found it, and we'll see you next time. Happy knitting!
00:29:54
Speaker
This show is produced and recorded by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.