Conservation VS Wet Finishing in Textile production
by Rachel Dalton, July 2nd 2018.
I have always been interested in historic textile
production and the connection it had to the lives of the weavers, spinners and
dyers that produced stunning cloth and clothing. As a weaver I strive to
reproduce these items and admire their stamina and fortitude with every shuttle
throw and threaded heddle. However, I was never happy with my finished results.
before wet finishing - individual threads are obvious and unstable
after wet finishing, the cloth is stable and cohesive
I worked for many years creating and reproducing
historic textile clothing for both living history groups and museums. The
nuances of a seam placement in relation to to the jacquard print, or shaping a
garment again fascinated me. I am a trained museologist and have worked on
conserving textiles and artifacts. I've re-woven threads of a raveling WWI
nurses uniform under a microscope and stabilized textiles. Creating a
conservation plan and executing was both part of my training and my job.
Inspecting minute details of the cloth was required and would change both the
execution of the conservation and the outcome. Cloth that had been woven 100
years ago was well worn and fragile, but one could tell it had been well used
and stood up to the rigors it had been woven to withstand. In my own weaving I
attempted to reproduce the patterns and styles I was well acquainted with. The
cloth was never appropriate. It was too loose, the fibers remained independent
of one another in a single piece of cloth. A complex clothing item was never
going to be possible with the items that I was weaving. I chalked it up to
inexperience and a forgotten knowledge taken to the grave by the textile
masters of yesteryear.
Youtube was well perused and so many books were bought
and absorbed. Magic in the Water was
purchased and watched repeatedly. I watched as Laura took out life's
frustration on her web while wet finishing a piece. How the piece changed in
her hands to a homogeneous, cohesive fabric. I filled my water bath and added
my web. I followed the steps outlined and waited, with baited breath..... my
piece was still not 'finished'. Wet finishing was my kryptonite and I couldn't
figure out what I was doing wrong. When I attended Lvl 1 of the Master Weavers
program taught by Laura in Cape Breton in May of 2018, I thought I was a pretty
decent weaver in my own right. I learned SO much, but was anxiously awaiting my
"light bulb" moment.
Wednesday afternoon, Laura pulled out the samples, the
blue scarf and the buckets of water. Here, here was Magic in the Water being presented before me. I watched and
repeated the steps with my own samples I had woven that week. Laura watched and
evaluated as I carefully placed my samples in the water and allowed them to
fully saturate. As I cupped my hand and worked across the surface of the fabric
drawing the water gently through the fibers to cleanse grease and dirt. As I
carefully rolled each piece in a towel to remove excess water and gently
flopped each piece onto the table as Laura had demonstrated. She watched as I
looked at my sad little piece, that was not magically becoming what I needed it
to become. She watched as I stared at it, willing it to do something -
anything. She watched as my conservator brain couldn't absorb her knowledge.
After I worked the process as I did, she approached and
offered insight. I reworked my pieces as she suggested while she watched from a
slightly closer distance. This time, when I gently flopped my damp web onto the
table to full it, she laughed at me! I was informed I was too gentle and the
fiber needed to be taught a lesson. She gave me the authority to beat the snot
out of my web. And I did. And it worked. It was my lightbulb moment. I was over
the moon. I literally danced in the middle of the room. I hurt my shoulder
fwacking the fiber so hard. I ran down to the weaving room, finished weaving
the remainder of my samples and ran back to wet finish them and hot pressed
each piece which flattened the fibers and made it shine. The wet finishing had
worked. I couldn't stop petting it. I could cut into that fabric and create a
garment. I could sew an item for my home, my children or a museum. It could be
used and passed on. I found a hot press and bought it on the spot.
Textile conservation was NOT the same as continuing the
creation of a textile with wet finishing. Conservators are tasked with doing as
little as possible to a piece to protect it from itself, outside influences and
time. Reworking threads and gently washing a piece to remove years of grime
which can affect the stability of fibers on a microscopic level. To mitigate
risk of a piece to ensure it's possible to display and research. For the
retention of the knowledge of the makers or the idea it supports. Wet finishing
is not necessarily the opposite of this idea, it's a concept that a woven piece
off the loom is no more a finished fabric than the skein of yarn used in it's
creation. Wet finishing is yet another step in the process to create a fully
functioning fabric.
When wet finishing, you're not "washing" your
fabric as a finished piece would be washed. The original makers would wet
finish the piece that I was now conserving. This is the concept I was completely
missing. A handwoven wool blanket or coverlet wouldn't be bashed against the
table repeatedly or thrown into the washing machine for fear of felting (as
we’ve all had happen at least once to that one hand knit sweater). I label all
of my hand woven items with washing instructions, "hand wash in cold with
gentle detergent and lay flat to dry". Wet finishing is not conservation
and it’s not washing a dirty, used piece. It’s yet another step in creating the
finished material.
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