#textile things

omg I'm so sorry it took so long to reply! Life's been nuts lately. Lemmie know if you want more specific things but here's some of my favorite textile things I know!

The original punch card jacquard loom is actually the precursor to binary code, which of course is kinda super important for computers. The loom uses the punched space and the filled space on the card to know what threads to pull up, its super cool I recommend looking on youtube for punch card jacquard loom videos to see some of the very few left work. The sound is *chef's kiss* and its always satisfying to seeing a weaving work up.

Fibers is the backbone of human civilization! Before the industrial revolution textiles was THE money maker, and besides farming, the most important thing for pretty much any and all cultures across the world, ever. Textiles were so important that just about all civilizations had some form of sumptuary laws preventing certain people from certain social standings or even outright banning certain types of fabric or prints or dyes from being worn but for a select few. For example, the Inca would ban certain patterns woven on tunics from being worn unless given permission, which it then became a major status symbol. And that fabric was actually used as a currency and was used to pay taxes. And a little more recent, during the 18th century in England, in order to protect the English textile industry, cotton, chintz and calico prints from India were banned, tanking the then overworked textile industry. (also India has this REALLY cool way to dye fabric with natural dyes thats not printed, they paint a mordant onto the fabric in the design they want and the dye adheres to that area only and its just,,, so damn cool)

Not to be a Luddite On Main but the industrial revolution was the worst thing ever, not just because like,,, Capitalism but because its only been in the last maybe 75 years? We've been able to recover handmade textile techniques. handweaving 100 years ago wasn't,,, really a thing. There was no point. So my weaving books on my shelf are really small miracles. And how most of the more complex weaves were rediscovered was through women sitting at a loom and figuring it out, and looking at museum pieces and reverse-engineering it. Those women are far stronger than I could ever be. (also a luddite was a sort of political group of English craftspeople that rejected the revolution because they knew it would be the death of handicrafts and honestly? they were right. We lost so much knowledge to the revolution.)

And Hot Take but sewing machines aren't evil oppressors, actually. I've seen too many feminist talk about how outdated and oppressive sewing machines are and all that jazz and like,,, sewing machines are the only reason women gained more independence. It was faster and easier to sew clothes for their families so they had more down time to be a Suffragette and demand more rights. Also like, as someone who is sewing and tailoring their own wardrobe, tailored close just look and feel and fit better and fast fashion Needs To Die.

In Victorian London, I know of two murders that were solved from knitting! (you can listen about these two cool cases on the podcast Fiber Nation, episode "The Half-Knit Stocking: A True-Crime Tale") One where this woman was murdered, her body half shoved in the fireplace to try and get rid of her, her half knit sock up on the shelf where it shouldn't have been, so she had to have been murdered and not had fallen into the fire. In a time where most murders weren't solved, they figured it out because of an unfinished sock! And the second one was about how this grandmother went missing and they found her killers by a pair of socks that were made by her where they shouldn't have been. Its actually pretty interesting and really sheds light on how many Victorian women were constantly knitting socks, all the time. And as someone who has knit four pairs of socks in the span of like a year and a half,,,, fuck that lmao.