In times gone by, garments were made by hand, from natural
materials. Now they are as likely to be made from synthetic
material, poured into molds, and those who purchase modern
clothing and bedding from stores are clueless on how to make
replacements. After the Pole Shift, survivors in industrialized
countries will be thrown back to a lifestyle prevalent centuries
ago. What will you do when your shoes are in pieces and your
clothing is in shreds? It’s really not that complicated! Start
your education by learning about natural fibers and materials.
Familiar and easily obtained materials are wool from sheep or
shaggy animals, cotton, and flax fibers for weaving into linen.
All are amenable to being combed into long fibers, in
preparation for being spun into yarn or thread. Wool is washed
to remove dirt and oils, linen soaked to rot away plant material
from the fibers, and cotton simply cleaned of husks and seeds.
Since wool tightens and shrinks when heated, a type of cloth
called felt can be made from small scraps. The felting process
is to lay wool fibers in different directions, then pour boiling
water over the lot. Felt is durable and wet felt can be formed
into slippers. After being spun into yarn, fibers such as wool
can be knitted into garments using a pair of knitting needles or
crocheted via a crochet hook. Transforming natural materials
into clothing in this way has been done by idle hands in the
evenings around the fire for centuries.
Curing leather to be used in coats or shoes or chaps is messy
at first, because the leather must be scraped clean. There are
many chemicals used for curing leather, but one survivors are
almost certain to be able to obtain is the time-honored tannin
from the bark of many different trees. Some rivers even owe
their dark brown color not to mud but tannin from trees
upstream. That’s the case for the Baraboo River that flows past
my house here in Wisconsin, for instance. Soaking the leather in
a mash from the brains of the animal is another tanning
technique.
Most cloth is woven on looms from threads and wool spun into a
fine twist. But leather is just cut into the appropriately sized
pieces. Regardless of whether knitted, woven, or from pieces of
leather, cloth requires needle and thread at some point. This is
for stitching by hand, or by machine. In the future, when
electricity might not be available, a treadle sewing machine is
just the thing. They can be found at yard sales, in barns or
antique stores, for sale on eBay, and even manufactured new
these days.
If shopping at the mall becomes impossible, and your existing
clothing supplies are getting raggy, get or make a spinning
wheel and a loom to make cloth, blankets, or knitted
clothing items such as scarves and sweaters. As the Zetas have
stated, needle and thread will be worth more than Gold and
Silver in the Aftertime. It was not so long ago that making
thread and yarn and making new clothes was the norm.
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The spinning wheel improves this process, allowing a foot pedal
to create the spin while the hands are free to work with the
material. The foot pedal is attached by a strap to a special
spoke sticking out from the center and to the side of the wheel.
When this special spoke is on the downward side of the circle,
the foot gives a gentle nudge to the foot pedal, encouraging the
motion. When on the upward side of the circle, the foot
releases, allowing the pedal to raise up so as not to slow the
motion of the wheel.
There is a groove in the wheel that holds a cord, and a similar
groove in a tiny wheel on the other end of the Spinning Wheel.
The relatively slow motion of the large wheel thus makes for
many turns of the tiny wheel, which is attached to the bobbin.
This bobbin replaces the more primitive spindle. Enough tension
is placed on the cord wrapped around the wheel and thence to the
bobbin so that the cord does not readily slip on either the
wheel or the bobbin. The knot in the cord should be as smooth as
possible.
Weaving requires two different threads - the warp and the weft.
The warp is long and strung from the front to the back of the
loom; the weft is laid from side to side during the weaving
process. Looms can be large, several feet wide, or small enough
to be placed on a table. Cloth woven on a small loom can be sewn
together to make a larger piece. The warp is long, runs from the
front of the loom to the back, and is wound around horizontal
wooden bars at the front and back. These bars turn, to wind the
warp at the front end or unwind the warp at the back, by using a
simple notched grip attached to the ends of the bars.
The warp is strung by winding a continuous thread around pegs
on a warp frame. Wind the thread back and forth several times,
creating several warp threads at one time, and then grip the
bunch on both ends and transfer the warp lengths to the loom
frame. This is done repeatedly until the warp is as wide as the
loom or as wide as desired. Make the warp as long as possible,
as the very front and back of the warp can never be woven and
become waste or fringe.
The warp threads on the loom are threaded through heddles,
which are also made of string or thread. A heddle is in essence
a small string loop inside a larger string loop, with the small
loop in the middle to hold a warp thread so it can be raised or
lowered during the weaving process. The heddles are made on a
heddle frame composed of three nails on a board, the top loop
tied above the middle nail, then below the middle nail, then
below the bottom nail.
