Wet Finishing Woolens

This fabric was woven and then taken to Sweden, then to a vadmalstamp in Norway to be wet finished.

The round piece in the upper left was finished in the stamp for 90 minutes.  Kerstin then turned some of the cloth into a German berger's hat.  (German merchant)

Going to the stamp was experimental, exploration, educational.  We took some of the cloth that had been put through the stamp and then ran it through her front loading washing machine on the most extreme cycle it had for a further 10 cycles to achieve the background cloth.

It is hard to describe a vadmal stamp, but Kirsi Frimanson has posted a video to You Tube showing her visit to a stamp and how it operates.

Vadmal (or vadmel) is a heavy duty woolen cloth that was kind of like the blue jeans of the middle ages.  It was still being used well into the 20th century, although by then it was mostly commercially produced.

Think wool melton.

I didn't do a traditional quality of cloth, nor did the others.  We each brought a length of fabric, all woven from wool, ranging from very open (think window screening), to fairly dense, either woolen or worsted, and mostly we just wanted to see what happened.

It was a once in a lifetime experience, but if you are thinking of traveling to Sweden, you might contact Kirsi to see if there are any group vadmalstamps that you might participate in.  Or attend Vav conference.  She had a booth there at the last one in 2017, speaks English very well if you don't speak Swedish (like I don't!)

Many Swedes do speak English very well.  The exhibits were interesting and the vendor hall had lots of linen and different quality of wool yarns from those commonly available in North America.

I also met people from Australia, Lichtenstein, Germany and I think England if I remember correctly.  Glad I made it at least once because I never thought I would be able to.