[Regia-NA] tent fabrics

[Jan Ward]

>At Roskilde, most of the (authentic) sails are made
of wool.  This 
surprised 
me, but apparently it acually has better properties
under aerodynamic 
loading than linen or cotton.  It is also woven with
the natural 
lanolin 
still in it, so with a natural waterproofing and
rotproof in it there 
are 
advantages.<

I remember reading (some years back--don't remember
the source) that wadmal was used for sails. It was
also at one time a sort of standard of exchange.
Wadmal is woven at a more open sett than usual, and
then fulled and felted down to about 2/3 to 1/2 it's
original size. It's much less prone to sagging. 
Handwoven magazine had an article or two on wadmal,
maybe 15 years ago, and there seemed to be a brief
flurry among the weaving guilds of folks trying it
out. One of the ladies in our guild wove and felted a
wadmal coat. It was quite warm, and there was no
fraying of the cut edges, and very little "drape". I
could see it standing up to use as a tent,
Edwinna



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com