it's too narrow for bed sheets
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it's too narrow for bed sheets cycjec 10-26-2007
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Posted by cycjec on October 26, 2007, 3:16 pm


36" wide. And on reflection, it's a bit to ... exuberant
to make clothing without approval from the recipient.

Lovely hand, cotton. Robert Kaufman Co. (on the selvage)
Pillowcases maybe. (But I've got more than 5 yards)

Some kind of lightweight comforter? With a solid alternate.

Want to move this one out of the stash.





Posted by on October 29, 2007, 4:36 pm
> 36" wide. And on reflection, it's a bit to ... exuberant
> to make clothing without approval from the recipient.
>
> Lovely hand, cotton. Robert Kaufman Co. (on the selvage)
> Pillowcases maybe. (But I've got more than 5 yards)
>
> Some kind of lightweight comforter? With a solid alternate.
>
> Want to move this one out of the stash.

If it has nice print, how about making dinner napkins and give out as
holiday gifts of 6 napkins each? If you have embroidery machine, you
can monogram as well.


Posted by Candide on October 29, 2007, 7:33 pm



> > 36" wide. And on reflection, it's a bit to ... exuberant
> > to make clothing without approval from the recipient.
> >
> > Lovely hand, cotton. Robert Kaufman Co. (on the selvage)
> > Pillowcases maybe. (But I've got more than 5 yards)
> >
> > Some kind of lightweight comforter? With a solid alternate.
> >
> > Want to move this one out of the stash.
>
> If it has nice print, how about making dinner napkins and give out as
> holiday gifts of 6 napkins each? If you have embroidery machine, you
> can monogram as well.


Just to mention, large sheets are rather a recent invention. Up until
about the 1800's or so sheets larger than what we would call "twin" or
perhaps "double" were made by sewing narrower lengths of fabric together
with one long seam down the middle. When the sheets began to wear down
the centre, the seam was opened up and the sheet turned "sides to
middle", and sewn together again. Highly doubt anyone today would sleep
on sheets made that way today though.

This also explains why vintage sheets in large or very large sizes go
for vast sums, being that they are so rare and all. Oh, the reason for
sheets being so narrow was simply looms were not invented yet that could
produce very wide expanses of linen.

Candide



Posted by Kate XXXXXX on October 29, 2007, 8:00 pm
Candide wrote:
>>> 36" wide. And on reflection, it's a bit to ... exuberant
>>> to make clothing without approval from the recipient.
>>>
>>> Lovely hand, cotton. Robert Kaufman Co. (on the selvage)
>>> Pillowcases maybe. (But I've got more than 5 yards)
>>>
>>> Some kind of lightweight comforter? With a solid alternate.
>>>
>>> Want to move this one out of the stash.
>> If it has nice print, how about making dinner napkins and give out as
>> holiday gifts of 6 napkins each? If you have embroidery machine, you
>> can monogram as well.
>
>
> Just to mention, large sheets are rather a recent invention. Up until
> about the 1800's or so sheets larger than what we would call "twin" or
> perhaps "double" were made by sewing narrower lengths of fabric together
> with one long seam down the middle. When the sheets began to wear down
> the centre, the seam was opened up and the sheet turned "sides to
> middle", and sewn together again. Highly doubt anyone today would sleep
> on sheets made that way today though.
>
> This also explains why vintage sheets in large or very large sizes go
> for vast sums, being that they are so rare and all. Oh, the reason for
> sheets being so narrow was simply looms were not invented yet that could
> produce very wide expanses of linen.
>
> Candide
>
>
They did have wider looms before 1800. Wool, for example, was woven up
to 120" wide in the 18th C and fulled down to 60" wide for Melon cloth.
Wider looms became more common when powered looms came in, but they
were certainly about before then. It's just that for anything much more
than 27" (common still for hand woven silk and Harris tweed), you needed
two people and a MUCH bigger space!

--
Kate XXXXXX R.C.T.Q Madame Chef des Trolls
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.katedicey.co.uk
Click on Kate's Pages and explore!

Posted by Joy Beeson on October 30, 2007, 1:34 am
wrote:

> Oh, the reason for
> sheets being so narrow was simply looms were not invented yet that could
> produce very wide expanses of linen.

The other way around -- looms had been invented which made it much
easier and cheaper to make cloth, but only if the weaver could reach
all the way across the weft.

The old-fashioned warp-weighted loom -- which persisted, for special
purposes in backwoodsy areas, into the twentieth century -- could make
fabric as wide as the beam you hung it from, but it was difficult to
make very long pieces. The floor loom -- speculated to have arisen
as a hybrid of the warp-weighted loom and the ground loom -- could
make a fabric of any length, but it lost efficiency when the weaver
couldn't throw the shuttle all the way across the warp in one go.

So narrow fabric was cheaper per square yard than broadcloth.

The floor loom was also amenable to being hooked up to water wheels
and steam engines, which neither the warp-weighted loom nor the ground
loom could manage, but that is a later story.

Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.



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