The yarns

The main raw material used in weaving is sheep wool and, to an almost irrelevant extent, goat wool. The textile fibers of vegetable origin are flax, hemp and cotton. A very special case is the weaving of silk and marine biscus. Until the early twentieth century, yarns were colored using the dyeing properties of local plants and, more rarely, using imported natural products.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of aniline dyes also spread, which did not completely replace traditional dyes, used to date mainly to obtain different shades of yellow, brown, brown and red. We also resort to the use of industrial production yarns, already colored.

Wool production has always been abundant even if of rather poor quality because the variety of sheep raised has a medium-length fleece, rather hard.
With the exception of annual shearing, all phases of wool processing were the responsibility of women. After washing and drying, the first wool was separated from the second and third choice by carding. A further choice was made by color, separating white wool from greyish and black wool, which was spun separately for coloring and final use.

Linen, cultivated on the island until the early twentieth century, underwent a tiring process of kneading to free the textile fibers from the wood fibers. Carding separated fibers of different quality, which were spun separately for various uses. The skeins of yarn also underwent bleaching and possibly dyeing.

The less valuable hemp yarn was obtained with a process similar to that of linen. Hemp production, widespread in the Middle Ages, almost completely stopped in the early twentieth century.

Cotton fiber, although widely used in traditional weaving, is rarely produced on site. Attempts at extensive cultivation of the plant fail several times, while the supply of low-cost cotton yarns ready for use in the textile field increases on the market.

Update

26/9/2023 - 01:09