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[personal profile] norsegirl
Question for the peanut gallery... I want to start weaving my trims with more authentic materials. But I'm having a problem figuring out how to use the results of said weaving...

I wove a lovely (but thankfully short) piece of wool on my mini-inkle loom and decided to try pre-shrinking it so I could use it as trim. First I tried washing it by hand in some very hot water. All the dye bled out of the blue threads and turned the yellow in the piece a nasty, dingy yellow-lime-green colour. At this point I was somewhat frustrated and tossed it in a delicates baggie and threw it in the wash. It is now a knotty, ropey piece of felt. Which, to be honest, is kinda what I expected. What I was trying to see is if the blue would come out of the yellow, and it did not.

So why was I washing wool in the first place when I KNOW it has a tendency to felt? I pre-wash everything I make into garb. I have taken this up ever since my very first dress became mid-calf length due to neglecting this step. I once forgot to pre-wash the trim before applying it to a garment, and now have strange wrinkles and gathering all the way around the trim as it shrunk while the fabric it was attached to did not. And yes, I could avoid all this pre-washing if I was able to commit to never washing a piece of clothing, but I just don't feel that is realistic. I wash my garb. I am a firm believer in everything being washer and dryer friendly. Stuff gets dirty, and I don't have the time or inclination to hand-wash things. I also prefer if I can launch it in the dryer and be ready to pack it away within a day of the event being over so I don't have to be looking at piles of garb all over the place for weeks. And while I can certainly be persuaded to hang-dry things, hand-washing is just never going to happen. If I cannot wash or dry it (and yes, I know our ancestors did not have the twin whirlpools to help them out) it becomes somewhat less than useful in my SCA garb.

Yes, I do make exceptions. I don't wash my Tudor, but I also have 2 or 3 layers between my skin and the dress. I also have to be fairly careful what I do when I wear it. And some day I'm sure I will spill something on it and it will be ruined. But I'm not going to treat something early period and camp-garby that preciously, and that's the sort of thing I would be applying simple wool trims to.

Here's the questions I put out to my wise readers:
Is wool trim useful or is this a silly pursuit for anything other than an A&S competition?
How can one weave a piece in wool and wash it without the dyes leeching out and ruining the piece (and possibly the garment it is applied to)?
Is there any way to pre-shrink wool so it can be applied to a garment without turning it into felt?
Once wool has been applied to a garment, what are the care instructions to ensure the wool will not shrink after application?
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September 2010

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