OT word of the day

letttuce edge
lettuce hem

A serged hem that is stretched as it is sewn so that it is ruffley
when finished.

--

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

Holland

A lightweight plainweave fabric with a stiff glaze, frequently of
cotton or linen. Often used for lampshades and window treatments.
--

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

Ramie

It is a plant fiber similar to flax, and comes from the stalk of a
plant that appears to have originated in the orient.
The plant itself may grow up to 8 feet tall and is a sort of
non-stinging nettle. The fibers can be removed from the plant either
by hand or machine without retting it. Which if you have ever toyed
with the notion of growing your own plant fiber is a tremendous thing.

It is stonger than flax, and stronger still when wet. However while
it is one of the strongest plant fibers it is one of the least
durable, so it is used primarily in blends.

Fabrics made with it tend to have a luster to them, and it dyes
magnificently.
--

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

Ooh! Thanks for this one. I have seen it 'around' and have wondered
whether it was natural or synthetic.

Continuing fascinating series. Thanks Nightmist.
..
In message , NightMist
writes
Ramie

It is a plant fiber similar to flax, and comes from the stalk of a
plant that appears to have originated in the orient.
The plant itself may grow up to 8 feet tall and is a sort of
non-stinging nettle. The fibers can be removed from the plant either
by hand or machine without retting it. Which if you have ever toyed
with the notion of growing your own plant fiber is a tremendous thing.

It is stonger than flax, and stronger still when wet. However while
it is one of the strongest plant fibers it is one of the least
durable, so it is used primarily in blends.

Fabrics made with it tend to have a luster to them, and it dyes
magnificently.

--
Best Regards
pat on the hill

Ramie

It is a plant fiber similar to flax, and comes from the stalk of a
plant that appears to have originated in the orient.
The plant itself may grow up to 8 feet tall and is a sort of
non-stinging nettle. The fibers can be removed from the plant either
by hand or machine without retting it. Which if you have ever toyed
with the notion of growing your own plant fiber is a tremendous thing.

I saw people growing their own flax in Romania last year (picture at
http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/Garden.jpg, which is part
of my Romania travelogue at http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/)
but I didn't see how they processed it. Just soak it in a tub till it
turns into slimy fibrous gunge?


It is stonger than flax, and stronger still when wet. However while
it is one of the strongest plant fibers it is one of the least
durable, so it is used primarily in blends.

Any idea what makes it fail and if there's anything you can do to
extend its life?

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === http://www.campin.me.uk ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:17:07 +0000, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:

Ramie

It is a plant fiber similar to flax, and comes from the stalk of a
plant that appears to have originated in the orient.
The plant itself may grow up to 8 feet tall and is a sort of
non-stinging nettle. The fibers can be removed from the plant either
by hand or machine without retting it. Which if you have ever toyed
with the notion of growing your own plant fiber is a tremendous thing.

I saw people growing their own flax in Romania last year (picture at
http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/Garden.jpg, which is part
of my Romania travelogue at http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/)
but I didn't see how they processed it. Just soak it in a tub till it
turns into slimy fibrous gunge?

Often yes that is exactly how it's done.
You pretty much just rot away everything but the fiber. Thus making
it a long, messy, stinky, process. I have been reading about
alternatives in the past few months, the most promising of which is
bundling the flax after harvest and hanging it exposed to the elements
for the winter. It is then rolled to break up any clinging dry bits,
shaken out and washed a few times. It sounds promising, but I honestly
don't know how clean the resultant flax would be, nor if it would take
damage from the freeze-thaw cycle. I don't know how well it would work
with other plants either.
Of course people have been experimenting with chemical processes, and
some of those work on an industrial level, but always with a weaker
end product than the traditional gives. That is where some of the
poorer quality linen in the world comes from.


It is stonger than flax, and stronger still when wet. However while
it is one of the strongest plant fibers it is one of the least
durable, so it is used primarily in blends.

Any idea what makes it fail and if there's anything you can do to
extend its life?

Nope.
I have dyed a few blends of it, and it is a glorious thing. kiri has
a ramie-nylon blend sweater that is sooooo yummy on the skin! Thus
that failure is indeed something that is one of my ongoing research
projects. From unwinding a ravel I would suspect that it has a
problem similar to kevlar. Each strand seems to be made of shorter
microstrands. Which combine to make a very strong main strand, but
fray off easily. Have to find a source where somebody is actually
addressing the durability issue since I don't have enough to play with
to sort it out to any reasonable degree.
So far what I have run across is mostly just "low abrasion
resistance", and wikipedia tells us it has a lack of cohesion between
fibers. I am wondering if the problem with ramie, and the falling
quality of linen are related. If they are cleaning all or most of the
natural waxes and resins out of the fiber before turning it into
yarns, it is going to go to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly. While
those waxes and all are what make linen a real beast so far as
wrinkling and ironing, they are also what make it nigh unto eternal. I
don't see the ancient egyptians and the ancient chinese useing a fiber
for cloth that deteriorates so quickly as modern ramie, or modern
linen for that matter. Ramie has been used in such places for at least
the last six thousand years. They have found it in ancient mummy
wrappings and in assorted clothing dating back all those millenia.
Thus IMHO modern processing techniques are highly suspect.

The plant has been imported in various places as an ornamental, and it
has escaped cultivation and naturalized in almost every one of those
places. So obviously it is easy to grow. If the durability could be
sorted it could be a kicking cottage industry.

For a map showing where it has naturalized in the US:

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=BONI2

For a pictures of the plant:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/25327/

You can also click on the name of the plant at the above link to get
cultivation details and growth habits.

I note that according to davesgarden the plant may be classed as a
noxious weed in at least one place.

NightMist



--

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

Baby Hem

A very narrow enclosed hem, usually used on delicate fabrics.

A step by step is he

http://www.burdastyle.com/howtos/show/1262
--

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

This is a very interesting topic. I'll be in Lithuania for a week next
month, and there will be some sort of linen tour. So I'll pay close
attention to methods.

AFAIK nettles were used for fiber in Europe, especially where flax was
harder to grow. Ref. the fairy tale of Ilsa and her brothers, who were
all turned into swans by the wicked witch. So Ilsa had to harvest
nettles, spin the yarn, knit each of them a sweater, and throw a
sweater over each swan to reverse the spell.

Roberta in D

On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:34:06 GMT, (NightMist)
wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:17:07 +0000, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:

Ramie

It is a plant fiber similar to flax, and comes from the stalk of a
plant that appears to have originated in the orient.
The plant itself may grow up to 8 feet tall and is a sort of
non-stinging nettle. The fibers can be removed from the plant either
by hand or machine without retting it. Which if you have ever toyed
with the notion of growing your own plant fiber is a tremendous thing.

I saw people growing their own flax in Romania last year (picture at
http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/Garden.jpg, which is part
of my Romania travelogue at http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/)
but I didn't see how they processed it. Just soak it in a tub till it
turns into slimy fibrous gunge?

Often yes that is exactly how it's done.
You pretty much just rot away everything but the fiber. Thus making
it a long, messy, stinky, process. I have been reading about
alternatives in the past few months, the most promising of which is
bundling the flax after harvest and hanging it exposed to the elements
for the winter. It is then rolled to break up any clinging dry bits,
shaken out and washed a few times. It sounds promising, but I honestly
don't know how clean the resultant flax would be, nor if it would take
damage from the freeze-thaw cycle. I don't know how well it would work
with other plants either.
Of course people have been experimenting with chemical processes, and
some of those work on an industrial level, but always with a weaker
end product than the traditional gives. That is where some of the
poorer quality linen in the world comes from.


It is stonger than flax, and stronger still when wet. However while
it is one of the strongest plant fibers it is one of the least
durable, so it is used primarily in blends.

Any idea what makes it fail and if there's anything you can do to
extend its life?

Nope.
I have dyed a few blends of it, and it is a glorious thing. kiri has
a ramie-nylon blend sweater that is sooooo yummy on the skin! Thus
that failure is indeed something that is one of my ongoing research
projects. From unwinding a ravel I would suspect that it has a
problem similar to kevlar. Each strand seems to be made of shorter
microstrands. Which combine to make a very strong main strand, but
fray off easily. Have to find a source where somebody is actually
addressing the durability issue since I don't have enough to play with
to sort it out to any reasonable degree.
So far what I have run across is mostly just "low abrasion
resistance", and wikipedia tells us it has a lack of cohesion between
fibers. I am wondering if the problem with ramie, and the falling
quality of linen are related. If they are cleaning all or most of the
natural waxes and resins out of the fiber before turning it into
yarns, it is going to go to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly. While
those waxes and all are what make linen a real beast so far as
wrinkling and ironing, they are also what make it nigh unto eternal. I
don't see the ancient egyptians and the ancient chinese useing a fiber
for cloth that deteriorates so quickly as modern ramie, or modern
linen for that matter. Ramie has been used in such places for at least
the last six thousand years. They have found it in ancient mummy
wrappings and in assorted clothing dating back all those millenia.
Thus IMHO modern processing techniques are highly suspect.

The plant has been imported in various places as an ornamental, and it
has escaped cultivation and naturalized in almost every one of those
places. So obviously it is easy to grow. If the durability could be
sorted it could be a kicking cottage industry.

For a map showing where it has naturalized in the US:

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=BONI2

For a pictures of the plant:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/25327/

You can also click on the name of the plant at the above link to get
cultivation details and growth habits.

I note that according to davesgarden the plant may be classed as a
noxious weed in at least one place.

NightMist

I saw people growing their own flax in Romania last year (picture at
http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/Garden.jpg, which is part
of my Romania travelogue at http://www.campin.me.uk/Travel/Romania2008/)
but I didn't see how they processed it.
This is a very interesting topic. I'll be in Lithuania for a week next
month, and there will be some sort of linen tour. So I'll pay close
attention to methods.

One thing I did see was the carding process - they used a board about
three feet long with a clump of sharpened nails driven through it at
the halfway point, maybe 30 nails 2 inches long in a bunch four inches
across. It took a lot of force to do it.

The folk camp did a re-enactment of a women's spinning and carding bee.
There were lots of traditional Hungarian songs and joke routines to go
along with this, most of them unladylike in the extreme.

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === http://www.campin.me.uk ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

NightMist wrote:
Baby Hem

A very narrow enclosed hem, usually used on delicate fabrics.

A step by step is he

http://www.burdastyle.com/howtos/show/1262
I've done hems like that, but didn't know it was called a baby hem. My
old McCall's Sewing Book calls it simply "Narrow machine hem". I think I
used it on some bridesmaids' dresses.

Julia in MN

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