When researching your family history you may come across references in a parish register to an ancestor being ‘buried in wool’ or ‘woollen burial’. What did this mean? For centuries the woollen trade had been important to the wealth and prosperity of England, but with the introduction of new materials and foreign imports, some people thought [more...]
Pashminas took off in the later 1990s, when draping a generous piece of woven cashmere round your shoulders was a fashion trend in Western countries. At the end of 1996 a London journalist reported that “style guru Lucia van der Post” said the pashmina was “the most chic shawl around town”. The New York Times [more...]
Fair Isle and the neighbouring island group of Shetland, on the northern fringes of the UK, have their own traditional styles of multicolour knitting. Local experts can tell the difference between the two, but the designs are so closely related that most people treat them as one single tradition. The early history wasn’t written down, [more...]
Lopi comes from the distinctive Icelandic sheep. Their fleeces have two layers, each with its own kind of wool. The sheep’s outer coat is water-repellent wool made up of long, tough fibres (called tog) and the under coat is highly insulating, made up of fine, soft wool (called thel or þel). The two fibres are [more...]
If someone says that something is shoddy they normally mean that it is badly made or of poor quality, or may be referring to bad workmanship. But where did this word come from? Its origin goes back to 1813, and surprisingly it refers to a process which would be seen nowadays as a good example [more...]