Handmade, hand-gathered local clothing project

I wanted to start sharing a project I’ve been working on to a lesser extent for the last 5 or so years (I don’t remember exactly) and to a greater extent recently, with hemp becoming available to me last fall. This is to make clothing that I can wear, which is entirely from the land, no part of it being bought, and which I made with my own hands. Something feels so special about that, and ever since I set my mind on that ideal I have felt quite disillusioned with my wardrobe as it is and considered it with only a utilitarian eye. But to wear the cloth of the land, alive in the field and in the glade, alive upon the spindle, alive upon the loom and finally alive as it clothes the human being, and not producing any toxic waste or harmful effect, seems like a sublime and holy thing to me, some sort of spiritual good that draws me like a hummingbird to a trellis of blossoming scarlet runners. Anyway, spindle spinning is one of the most pleasant activities I know, if only I didn’t run out of fiber so quickly.

My thought so far is maybe a skirt, as it feels like the most primal and ancient of garments. I’m not that far along yet though, and still have time to change. I suppose a test swatch would be beneficial, perhaps a small cloth bag, as I have yet to figure out weaving completely and have some coarser yarn that I spun while I still used my clay whorl, although since I have benefitted from switching to one of Norway-maple wood at the advice of a friend and fiber master.

So far I have spun two substantial balls of yarn with my fine maple-wood-spun hemp, and the other day began to warp with one of them onto some wild lettuce stalks. The wild lettuce is notable for having substantial and extremely straight stalks, and I plan to incorporate them to a great extent into the weaving process, for which I have made the beginnings of a warp-weighted loom with some forked buckthorn sticks. I also plan to incorporate wild fibers for artistic effect and frugality of material, dogbane and milkweed especially, and perhaps wood nettle. Milkweed has been the trickiest fiber to work with, because they don’t respond to traditional retting, their outer waxy skin resisting decomposition and the fibers breaking down first rather than last. Thus they need to be retted very slowly, either stood up in a dry place for the winter or peeled and hung from a tree. Luck had it that the spirit of the milkweed plant instructed me to hang a bundle of the peeled bark from the bough of a birch, and I obeyed; although I did not correctly discern the purpose of this instruction originally, now after the rain and sun have done their work I see the purpose and benefit, and that these fibers are extremely well formed: white as snow and very soft when rubbed. I have much raw, dry milkweed bark inside, which at present is useless but which with retting may be put to good use and appreciated.

I don’t have a spindleful of yarn, as I recently turned the yarn to a ball and afterward into the beginnings of a warp, and my distaff looks rather ratty; I’ll add in pictures at another time. But for now here below is the warping process so far, wrapped about the lettuce stalks, which had been propped up in the earth (with the support of stones and old pots) but I had to bring inside due to the weather.

An exciting project! As I remember reading, there are lots of styles of ancient clothing that used the full width of woven cloth. Depending on what you decide you want to have, it may be easier if you figure out your needed cloth size and then weave based on that.
There are so many historical designs you can use for inspiration!

That is true. I may unwind and rewind if I change my mind; the spinning is the priority right now. Speaking of which, here are some of the spinning tools and fibers:

Are you able to spin the thread?  Like something fine?

I recently bought a dress as something comfortable to wear around the house.  I thought I had a circulation problem though that now seems to have gone away.

This dress uses a rectangle of cloth using the full width as Dian described.

I believe this type of clothing has regional names or maybe even historic names.

I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking. I’ve included an image for scale, and yes I am able to spin it. I wouldn’t use it for sewing though; but would rather twist fibers into a thin two ply cord by hand, or sometimes simply use a very thin strip of bast.

I will certainly research some more of these ancient clothing items. Though I would like to keep the size of the cloth manageable for now, especially since the hemp supply isn’t technically my own. As soon as the soil drains from all this rain and snow, I hope to sow a plot of flax. I would have liked to sow hemp too, as they seem a hardier plant, but the bureaucracy sounds dreadful.

This sounds like an awesome project.

When you get to the decisions about how you will weave and then sew, this thread: https://permies.com/t/154258/sewing/Clothing-patterns-based-rectangles  may give you ideas about efficient ways to use your precious material.

I can remember reading of some ancient fabric which was made from narrow strips of material that could be made on a simple tablet loom. I've been thinking that would be an awesome thing to try someday, but I've too many much higher priorities at the moment: https://permies.com/t/156573/Experiments-Tablet-Weaving-Lessons-Learned
https://permies.com/t/221912/tablet-weaving
I used some extremely slippery cards to make my first tablets, and then I used equally slippery antique silk from a Great Aunt as my first project. I don't recommend that! But other permies have done some awesome projects with this concept, and I recall that the ones used for clothing were at least 4" wide. Because by the nature of the technique the strips are fully salvaged, fraying of the strips wouldn't be an issue.

There are also the shaped peg looms that might have a place, if you want to create gussets or gores to improve the functionality of the project.

I have made hundreds of yards of cordage from linden bark. Using binding, I think you could make a skirt or cape. It would be rough, but warm. You would need a lot of bark, though.

Thank you for the advice! Do you mean nålbinding, or am I misinterpreting?

As for updates I’m working slowly on spinning wood nettle (Laportea canadensis) yarn. Nettle is more accessible and available than hemp, and this project is more constrained by materials than by time. Deer rifle season and then snow put a stop to the nettle harvest. And so if it saves material it doesn’t matter if it’s a little slower to twist two fibers at a time together by splicing, without tools. The work isn’t difficult and the technique creates an excellent quality yarn, and with it I can use every bit of nettle and be left with no tow. Even if there is some fluff left then I twist that into a thin fiber on its own and then twist that onto the yarn, and the result looks corded and is strong yet no thicker than the rest.

No, i mean binding as in weaving.It’s how the Maori make cloaks.

Oh, that makes more sense! I know that technique as twining. I have done that with some cattails too in the hopes of making some sort of cloth but it was a little stiff, so could be better as a cloak as you said. Then I started scraping and cording the cattails and made a good, warm soft swatch of cloth out of the scraped fibers. But nettles are a little easier and currently taking more of my time.

Someone also gave me some hickory bark today that looked good for cloth. There is another thread on that here: https://permies.com/t/262257/Clothes-wood-bark and thank you for the linden suggestion too.

What a delightful idea!

I'm a fleece spinner, working primarily with wool, and occasionally with alpaca or some more unusual furry bits (someone recently gave me bison fiber gathered from posts on a bison "farm". It stinks, but it's quite soft!)

I've wanted to start playing with bast fibers, and to that end have saved the stems from two years of marijuana grow. I left last season's out over last winter, but even with a surprisingly wet season it wasn't wet enough to do much retting. It's in a horse trough now collecting snow. I also harvested nettle with an eye for fiber, grabbing the short stalks through most of the summer when I wanted some to eat or use for medicine, and then collecting an armful of very long stalks after they had gone to seed.

For inspiration while you wait for retting to happen, I suggest reading Elizabeth Barber's "Woman's Work" which has delightful vignettes about the earliest textiles, and if you're looking for more academic tomes she has some rather denser books as well (Prehistoric Textiles is a lovely read, but not quite as accessible) The discussion of early weaving techniques and garments might spark inspiration about the shapes and forms of a no-waste garment.

Thank you for the book recommendations, I will certainly look for them! It is interesting to hear about your fiber journey so far as well. I’d be interested to hear how the nettle and hemp fibers turn out. If you don’t have success retting the fibers by dew it is possible to water ret in a bucket and end up with fertilizer, or even to soak the dry stalks and then scrape strips of bark to refine the fibers. I believe in Korea they steam the nettles and then scrape.