Silk for Irish Swans
December 27th 2007 03:46
Silk for Irish Swans
... swan princes ...
... swan princes ...
There's an old Irish story about a group of young princes who were turned into swans by they evil step mother and saved by their sister making them shirts made from nettle which thrown over them would break the curse.
A typica lfairy tale. You cant turn nettle into a shirt? Wrong.
Many years later I found out that nettle was used in the Neolithic in Northen Europe for weaving! Yes Weaving. Apparenlty like LINEN the long fibers in the stems can be "retted" and processed into fibers that can be knotted knitted and woven.
However wool and cotton can be processed and grown more easily and more cheaper and faster so nettle fiber nowdays is rarely used for textiles espect by some very devoted craftspersons and a few remote peoples like the Bhutanese.
I have not seen nettle fiber but if properly and patiently processed it is apparently as soft as silk and can be mixed with other fibres?
Young nettle leaves are edible too cooked or raw.
Perhaps instead of reintroducing hemp for paper and cloth we should be looking at nettles?
Those Irish swan princes were lucky they had a sister willing to work nettle fiber!
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Comment by Rosemary
Alpaca Notes - Tasmania
On the other hand, if the garment turned out to be too prickly you could just cook it up and eat it.