To Full or Not to Full

 

wool after wet finishing and fairly significant fulling

linen after wet finishing

Just a friendly reminder that plant fibres do not full.

Fulling is something that *some* protein fibres do.  Not all wool will full, but ALL fibres need to be wet finished IMHO.

Plant fibres will bloom as they absorb water.  The threads will shift to areas of least resistance, such as in the above lace weave.  A hard compression while damp will then flatten the threads and further fill in the spaces between, but fulling is not what is happening.

Some people say that the term 'wet finishing' is an overblown term that doesn't add to the discussion.  I disagree.  It is a very specific term for a very specific phenomenon.  It encompasses fulling as part of the process when fibres that *will* full can be encouraged to do so.

I am not the only person in the weaving community who has espoused this term or this process, whatever someone calls it.  Beverly Gordon wrote The Final Step outlining how to wet finish wool and mostly focused on fulling.

When I finished the Guild of Canadian Weavers master weaver program, I chose to look at wet finishing with an emphasis on how to make textiles appropriate for cold weather climates.  As part of the monograph I produced for the fourth and final level, I wove hundreds of samples and wet finished them.  Not all were wool, although that was the major focus of my work.

I set up an experimental process and wet finished the woollen samples to different degrees, then analyzed them to determine how the set experimental lengths affected the fulling.

After that I was encouraged to write a book.  So I did.

 

The original publication was a 2" ring binder filled with samples for 20 different projects.  Both before and after wet finishing.

finished jacket and vest

part of the technical information provided, wet finished/fulled sample with unfinished sample below - the samples started out the same size so the wet finished sample shows the degree of dimensional loss that happened during the process

It is never a bad idea to understand the principles of a craft, understand the processes involved.

And unless the web will never be touched by water, everything should be wet finished.  In my not-so-humble opinion...

(Magic in the Water is only available with the samples as photos.  If someone wants the original publication with samples, check out guild sales, estate sales, second hand book sites.  Otherwise, blurb.ca or .com carry both Magic in the Water and The Intentional Weaver - both PDF and hard copies.)