What is wool waulking?
What is wool waulking?
Waulking is another word for fulling, a step in woolen clothmaking that refers to the practice of cleansing the cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities. Fulling involves two processes, scouring and thickening, and is one of the steps in creating melton cloth.
Why did they soak wool in urine?
Fulling, also known as tucking or walking (Scots: waukin, hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool) to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and to make it thicker.
What does Waulk the tweed mean?
Waulking (in Gaelic luadh) is the technique of. finishing the newly-woven tweed by soaking it and thumping it rhythmically to shrink and soften it – all done by hand in the old days. The songs served to keep the rhythm and lighten the work.
Why is urine used in tweed?
The urine helped to fix dye colours to the wool. Urine was also used later in the tweed-making process to remove any lingering oiliness from the woven fabric and to shrink it to the correct size.
Is tweed made with urine?
Waulking the Fabric Originally this was done by literally ‘walking’ (i.e. treading) the fabric in water, perhaps treated with a proportion of urine for its ammonia as a cleansing agent. But don’t worry, nowadays the process involves nothing more than pure water.
Is Harris Tweed still made?
You can purchase Harris Tweed® cloth directly from the Mills and Independent Producers. Please visit our ‘Buy Harris Tweed®’ page for more information.
What are fulling hammers?
The fulling hammer (foot) repeatedly beats the cloth in one direction of the weave causing the weave to tighten and the wool fibers to interlock. With each impact of the hammer, the cloth bundle rotates slightly against the curved bottom of the tank.
What does Clarty mean in Scottish?
dirty
/ (ˈklɑːtɪ, Scottish ˈklærtɪ) / adjective clartier or clartiest. Scot and Northern English dialect dirty, esp covered in mud; filthy.
What wool is Harris Tweed made from?
pure virgin wool
Harris Tweed, (Clò Mór or Clò Hearach in Gaelic) is a tweed cloth that is handwoven by islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides.
What was a Fuller?
A fuller, a worker who cleanses wool through the process of fulling.
What is the difference between wool and tweed?
A few characteristics define all tweeds: Tweed is a woolen fabric. Woolen yarns are made from carded wool, which is thick and full of un-straightened fibers. It is warm and flexible but not as smooth or uniform as worsted yarns, where the wool is combed so that all the fibers lie in one direction.