All "Sheeps" and Sizes
Textiles / July 7th, 2021
Having well-made clothing and linens was essential to the survival of early settlers in Canada. Deciding what materials to use and where to get them from were the first, and possibly most important, steps of making any kind of textile.
Sourcing Materials
Options for materials were few and far between for the O’Haras when they first moved to Canada, they needed something warm and reliable to prevent them from freezing in the harsh Northern winters. Wool was the most ideal choice for them, it was widely available as some families brought sheep with them. Wool was also moisture-wicking, heavy, and warm; all good qualities of winter clothing and linens.
Not every family raised sheep, if you didn’t already have sheep they were hard to obtain. Most commonly farms would have a few sheep and not a whole flock. In some occasions, one farm in the community would raise a flock of sheep and sell the wool they didn’t use.
Raising sheep was a large task, they are very timid creatures and are constantly susceptible to predator attacks. Sheep in the early 1800s were a different strain than what we commonly see today, they were smaller and hardier, sometimes only as big as the common dog. One of the only sources of protection were the male sheep, or Rams. If there were multiple breeding Rams in an area, farmers would trade them every so often to prevent interbreeding. A good sheep will produce wool as long as it was healthy, and a farmer could tell the health of his flock based on their teeth. After about two or three years, a sheep would have all its teeth and they would start to break away. Once this begins, the sheep don’t have much longer to live, giving them a lifespan of about six years. With this being the case, breeding the sheep often was essential to maintaining a good, healthy flock.
Sheering the sheep occurred once a year in the spring, sometimes again in the fall if the weather permitted and the sheep had enough wool to make it worthwhile. A skilled famer could sheer up to forty sheep a day with hand sheers if given assistance by someone to hold the sheep still. If the farmer was less experienced and working alone, it could take closer to an hour for each sheep. In comparison, using electric shears nowadays takes only about three minutes per sheep. Each sheep could produce one to two pounds of wool every year, compared to sheep today that can produce closer to six or eight. Each pound of wool would be enough to produce about enough yarn to make one sweater.
Before the wool becomes yarn or a sweater, it goes through a lengthy cleaning process. The wool has to be washed and picked of any remaining impurities. This was often a job for the whole family as they sat around the fire in the evening. After the wool was clean, it usually lost about half its weight. So now a sheep that would produce only one pound of wool every year could only provide enough yarn for half of a sweater. The washing process was a delicate task. All of the impurities, like dirt and hay, needed to be washed out in a warm lye bath. If the water was too hot, the natural greases on the wool would be washed away and could no longer be spun as easily. To learn more about how wool is spun into yarn and then woven into different textiles, keep an eye out for our future blog postings!
Wool was not the only material used by settlers. The other most common material used was cotton. It, along with other materials like silk, would have to be imported or recycled from materials already in their possession.
HOMEMADE DYES
When dealing with wool, sheep could only produce black or white, sometimes even brown or grey. So in order to get more colourful fabrics, settlers had to make their own dyes. Materials would be dyed at different stages to obtain different effects. Wool, yarn, and thread would all be dyed so that multiple colours could be used in a project. They could be used to produce different patterns when being woven together on a loom, sometimes getting very complex! Already woven together fabrics would be dyed to obtain a more even and solid colouring.
There was no real “right way” to dye materials, it was all up to the creator. The one step that absolutely needed to happen was soaking the material in a bonding agent, like vinegar, before dyeing. This ensured that the colours “stuck” to the fabric properly and that they couldn’t be washed out. There was a lot of experimentation when is came to the first dyes. Settlers could only use the resources around them, like flowers, leaves, and fruit. Sometimes the desired colour didn’t come from the things you would expect. For example, blueberries produce more of a purple dye as opposed to blue. Here are a few more examples;
Yellow: dandelions, marigolds, and sunflowers
Orange: carrot roots and onion skins
Brown: walnuts and fennel (a member of the carrot family)
Pink: roses and lavender
Purple: grapes, coneflowers, and hibiscus
Things like grass, moss, and bark were also used to make a variety of different coloured dyes. Find something and try to make a dye out of it, who knows what colour it could produce!
The chosen organic materials would be boiled over a fire in water for long periods of time, then strained to produce a heavily saturated smooth dye. After the desired piece is soaked in the bonding agent (vinegar, remember?), it then gets placed into the pot containing the dye and placed back over the fire. It would sit there for several hours before being washed of any excess dye. If any of this interests you, it is super easy to make your own dyes! There are plenty of other resources with a more in depth walkthrough. We encourage you to try it, as this can be a super fun activity for the whole family!