XXIII.
HOME-MADE GARMENTS-SPINNING AND WEAVING.
In
connection with household duties there were things to do that would not now be
considered in keeping with the way we manage our home affairs nowadays.
A
great deal of the clothing worn by the heads of families and the children was
manufactured by and under the supervision of the wife and mother. Almost every
family owned a few sheep, and the wool, after it had been sheared in the
spring, was thoroughly washed and dried, and picked and carded, and woven, and
the cloth cut and made up into garments for the various members of the family
by the good wife and mother. It was a long, tedious, laborious road from the
wool on the sheep's back to the completion of the "homespun" garment
on the person of the wearer. At that time the "the tariff on wool"
had not begun to cut any figure, and it did not matter whether there was a high
protective tariff on wool or not, as there was no wool imported into the
western country at that time, and nobody had any use for imported wool anyhow.
All the wool was used at home, and it was many years after the first settlement
before there was a surplus to dispose of.
The
fleece of wool was sorted, the fine from the coarse, and carded by means of
hand cards made of short bent wire thickly fastened into leather, which was in
turn fastened to a small board about 3 by 4 1/2 inches thick, to which were
fastened handles. Two of these cards were used. A small amount of wool was
placed on one of the cards, and then the carder would hold one in his left hand
and pull with the other in his right hand until the wool had been thoroughly
torn to pieces, when it was made into a small roll, say, about half or
three-quarters of an inch in diameter and five or six inches in length.
Carding
was hard work, but after one got used to it, it became easier, and in time many
became experts and could "roll" off a considerable quantity in the
course of a day.
But
spinning was the most difficult operation of all. The old spinning wheel was an
absolutely indispensable piece of furniture in every wel1- regulated cabin.
They were of two kinds: the large wheel with the projecting spindle, which was
used only to spin wool, and the small wheel with distaff, which was used mostly
for spinning flax, but on which wool was sometimes spun. To draw out the roll
and turn the wheel just fast enough to move the spindle with the proper
velocity to make the thread the proper
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY. 143
Size
and keep it so was something that not everyone could do. When the spool was
filled the thread was run off on a reel until it had so many "cuts,"
they were taken off into hanks, and then into dozens and hung up bunches for
use when needed. .
The
yarn was colored red, brown, black, yellow and blue;, according to fancy of
the manufacturers. This was generally
used for filling. The loom was generally of domestic manufacture, except the
reed and shuttles, which were purchased by cotton from those who made them for
the retail trade. The different colored threads were fastened into as many
shuttles passed through the warp from one side to the other as often as was
necessary
to make the stripe desired, when that particular shuttle would be laid aside
and a shuttle containing another color would be taken up and passed through,
and so on alternately until all had been used. Some very handsome plaids were made in this way and when worked up
into “linsy woolsy" dresses and other garments for the female portion of
the household,
they
were not only handsome, but, for winter wear, warm and comfortable. When cloth
was to be woven for men’s wear the yarn was generally colored blue, and to make it
variegated, a string would be tied tightly around the hank before it was dipped
into the coloring kettle, and this would prevent the color from taking effect,
leaving a white spot in the thread which, when woven into cloth, gave it the
appearance of "Kentucky jeans. A suit of this kind of cloth, when neatly
worked up, made a dress that was not to be sneezed at.
For
summer wear linen made of flax was generally used, and so almost every farmer
had a flax patch sufficiently large to supply the supposed demand. After the
ground was prepared the seed was sown, and nothing more was necessary until the
stalks had ripened and it was ready to pull. It was carefully pulled up by the
roots and laid down in swaths to cure, after which it was bound in bundles and
put under cover for use when wanted. A flax break was made having a level"
with grooves in it, so that when the flax was placed on the break and the lever
was pressed down on it with sufficient force the straw inside would be broken,
leaving the fiber undisturbed. When the flax was thoroughly broken, in order to
get all the pieces of straw out from among the fiber it had to be carefully "scutched"
or "wingled." This was done by setting a board upright and rounding
off the top, making. it even and smooth. An instrument made of hickory wood,
say about three feet long, much in the shape of a butcher knife, with a proper
handle, with which to do the scutching, was used. Taking a hand full of broken
flax in his left hand, close to the lower end, and throwing it over the top of
the board, and taking the "scutcher" in his right hand he beat away,
turning it in his hand as often as necessary until the broken straw had all
been scutched out, and nothing but the fiber, which had been beaten into tow,
left. Before it could be spun into thread. It was necessary to run it through a
hackle for the purpose of separating the coarse part from the fine. When it had
been properly hackled it was wound tightly on a distaff, which was a necessary
attachment to the old spinning wheel. .Starting a thread from the flax on the
distaff, setting the wheel in motion and keeping it going by foot power, our
ancient and
144
HISTORY
OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
Amiable mothers would work away from morning until night, day in and day out, spinning thread out of which to make husband and children shirts and other clothing for the summer.
The
weaving of cloth out of flax was done on the same loom and in the same way as
woolen cloth was woven. The main garment made out of flax cloth was men’s and
boys’ shirts. At first, without underclothing, as may be well imagined, they
were a “holy terror” to the skin, and as there were no buttons, and the collars
and sleeves had to be fastened with a needle and thread and tied in a hard
knot, there was no way of getting them loose so as to relieve one’s epidermis
by scratching. After they were washed and ironed a few times, however, they
became quite smooth and were more or less endurable.
The
greatest difficulty the writer had in wearing these primitive shirts was in
getting the cuffs and collar unfastened
and properly fastened up again when he stole away on Sunday against the
express commands of his parents and went in swimming. Some of the wicked boys
in the neighborhood, however, generally managed to secretly carry off the
family needle and thread, after it had been used for the day, and in that case
the collar and cuffs, would be fastened, and unless some other evidence of
truancy appeared, the beech rod above the fireplace would be permitted to
remain in its place; otherwise, otherwise.