What Is Homespun Fabric?
In the early 21st century, the term homespun fabrics refers both to fabrics made entirely in the home and factory-made cloth with similar characteristics. A basic understanding of the cloth-making process is useful for grasping the homespun concept.
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Original Meaning
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Originally, homespun referred to fabrics entirely made in the home. The making of fabric involves several processes, starting with collecting the fibers.
Fabric Making: Early Steps
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Weaving loom After collecting the fibers, the first two processes are washing and then carding (removing remaining foreign materials and smoothing out the fibers). Next, a craftsperson uses a spinning wheel to spin fibers into yarn or thread, thus explaining the term homespun.
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Fabric Making: Later Steps
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Once a craftsperson has yarn or thread, she begins making whole cloth or a garment. To do so, she either uses yarn directly for knitting into a garment, such as a sock or a scarf, or she weaves cotton threads on a loom into whole cloth, which she would then cut and sew into garments such as shirts or dresses.
Modern Homespun
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Modern homespun fabrics are primarily factory-made but resemble traditional homespun cloth through the incorporation of certain characteristics. With wool, however, you can still find some true homespun, according to Fabric Manufacturers.
Source Fibers
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Source fibers for both traditional homespun cloth and modern homespun are natural fibers. Most commonly, the source fibers are either cotton or wool.
Characteristics of Modern Homespun
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Characteristics of modern homespun fabric include that the cloth has no front or back; the design results from weaving colored threads together to create a design. Further, with cotton, the material frays in a way that lends itself to rag-style quilts.
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References
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Jeremy Keith Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Michael Wade
