All about fabric Part 2

This post is a continuation of the last post I made on natural fibers. In my last post, I talked about plant fibers; this post is going to be about animal fibers, but more specifically, wool. To see my last post, click here.

Animal fibers are also known as protein fibers which are chains of amino acids that have been formed.

Sources of protein fibers are of course animals. Protein fibers come from their wool (fleece), hair, fur, or extruded filament (meaning something that is not attached to the animal, but comes out of it like milk comes from a cow. Not that there is any fabric made of milk... that I know of. Actually... Hang on. I think I read an article about milk fabric a few days ago. I don't really know anything beyond what's in the article because it's such a new invention, but here is the article. Oh. They've also made some garments out of wine.).

Sorry for that little tangent. Now I'm going to talk about wool. 

Wool

• 90% comes from sheep
• usually referred to as fleece
• over 400 breeds
• full fleece = all wool from one sheep
• One full fleece is 151 lbs.
• Once cleaned, it is about 7 lbs.
• Regulations are set by the Department of Agriculture in the USA.
• Labels and guidelines are set by the Federal Trade Commission in the USA.
• World productions of Wool - 2009
• Top 9 (I guess I forgot to write down #10)
• 1) Australia   2) China   3) New Zealand   4) United Kingdom   5) Argentina   6) Morocco   7) Sudan   8) Russia   9) Syrian Arab Republic
• Organic Wool
• Not dipped in parasiticides (to remove fleas/tics)
• Do not exceed the natural carrying capacity of the land
• Farmers get better price
• Well supervised
• For more information about organic visit The Organic Trade Association's Website
• Most common sheep we get wool from
• Merino sheep- specific to Australia. Has good quality wool. 
• American Cormo- specific to the USA
• California Red - has little red hairs in the white fleece
• Exotic Sheep Breeds
• Icelandic
• Karakul Sheep
• oldest sheep known to man
• Mesopotamia
• used for rug making (specifically tibetan rugs)
• variety of colors
• when lambs are born, they have fur rather than fleece. People kill the baby lamb for the fur before it is even three days old. 
• Types of Wool
• Navajo Churro
• "carpet wool" sheep
• coarse, low grade
• Examples: Icelandic sheep, karakul sheep, navajo sheep, churro sheep
• Jacob Sheep
• medium length fiber, mixed color
• Leicester
• "long wool" sheep
• long stapled fibers
• preferred by hand spinners
• Specialty Wools
• Alpaca
• 19 different shades
• From Peru
• Llama
• Coarser hair
• Kashmir Goat
• From Northern Asia around Turkey and India.
• Some scarves are made out of Kashmir and silk. The knock off scarves are mostly wool.
• Angora Goats (Mohair) 
• looks kind of like a poodle
• very small and domesticated
• Angora Rabbit
• More hair than fur
• Comes in different colors
• When a label says "Angora" it means it is Angora Rabbit. Mohair comes from the Angora Goat, not "Angora."
• Vicuna
• was endangered and under protection because it is hard to shear them
• people had to be trained to properly shear the vicuna
• Camel
• Camel hair down
• Camels molt. You want the mold "down"
• "Down" is the hair underneath the body. It's softer than the top hair. 
• Down is from the underside of the animal and is very expensive. 
• Alaskan musk ox
• wool is known as Qiviut (fabric/fiber)
• use "down"
• Gathering Wool
• shearing- electric buzzer. shear once a year.
• Process after shearing
• Cleaning off vegetation, dirt, and lanolin (lamb oil/grease).
• Sorting/skirting
• Carding- passes the clean, dry wool through a system of wire rollers to align, clean, and straighten the fibers and remove vegetable matter.
• Combing
• Roving
• Spinning yarn or felted
• What is shearling?
• hide of sheep
• Used for:
• Medical - prevents bedsores
• Rugs or throws
• Interiors
• A typical shearling pelt has leather or sueded leather on one side and shorn fibers on the other side
• Wool Felting
• Felt is a non-woven fabric. 
• To felt wool you must get it wet, heat it, and then agitate it. (this is for wet felting not needle felting) It also helps to add soap. 
• The oldest evidence of felting knowledge was found in Turkey dating back to 6500-3000 B.C.
• Types of felting: wet, dry/needle felting, and nuno felting
• Properties of Wool
• Aesthetics
• Texture
• Matte finish
• loft
• Comfort
• hygroscopic- water rolls off
• absorbant
• thermo retention - keeps you warm
• specific gravity - how dense it is
• Durability
• flame resistant
• flexibility, elongation
• weaker when wet
• Appearance retention
• resilience - resists wrinkling
• elasticity
• elongation
• Care
• wrinkle resistant
• Does not show soil easily
• harmed by dry heat, alkali soap, oxidizing agents (bleach)
• Harmed by moths
• moths are attracted to the sulfur in wool
• Do not use mothballs
• Can use lavender or cedar. 
• Cost
• Care- dry cleaning expensive
• specialty wools cost more
• History of sheep
• www.sheepusa.org

One more other quick note/fun fact about wool garments: If you're walking down the streets in Manhattan, you're likely to see people selling 'Pashmina' scarves. There is no such thing as a pashmina goat. Pashmina is simply a cashmere blend. The scarves on the street of the big city are usually a cheaper cashmere blend accompanied by a cheaper fiber as well. The nicer scarves are a cashmere blend combined with silk though they still often put the 'Pashmina' label on it. Just to be clear: the Pashmina goat does not exist. Though this in no way stops the scarves from being comfy and cute; I own two. 

All about fabric Part 1

After getting about halfway through this post, I realized that there's too much information for one post, I'm going to spread this throughout several posts. This one is on Natural Fibers/Plant fibers. The next post will be on Natural fibers/Animal Fibers I think. I'll try to see if I can add some pictures too without taking them from google.


Also: I have absolutely no idea why this post is highlighted in white. If you know how to make that go away, please let me know.

I have a lot of fabric. It was as I was putting it all away the other day that I realized exactly how much I have. It really doesn't look like much when it's all put away, but actually putting it all away took hours. Let me put it this way: when I went to school, I brought four boxes of fabric with me- not even half of my fabric. But I digress.

I went to school for one semester in fashion in which I took textiles (which I took for two semesters), so hopefully I can share some knowledge from that. I also worked at a fabric store for a while before I left for school.

Today I want to talk about fabric in general including fabric types, fabric content, and buying fabric.

If you have any additional knowledge you'd like to share, please feel free to leave a comment. If you've done a post similar to this one or that covers anything I've missed, please leave a link in the description, and I'll be sure to link it through this post.

Fabric is made up of yarns, and yarns are made up of fibers. This means that a fabric that is 100% cotton is made up of yarns that are composed of only cotton fibers. This is important to know when understanding what exactly they're talking about when a fabric is 60% cotton 40% polyester. It's the ratio of the fibers in the yarns.

One quick note about clothing. All fiber content and care must be listed on clothing. If an item is made in the US, it does not have to say where it was made on the tag. This probably only applies to commercially produced goods, but you never know. It's always a good idea to be aware of the fiber contents in the things you make just in case someone wants to know.

Fabric is measured by weight a lot of the time. The weight of a fabric is measured by square yard. In other words, they weigh a 36 inch by 36 inch piece of fabric. With a few exceptions, for the most part, the fabrics are measured in ounces (This is probably only in America though. I'd imagine it's measured in grams or something in the rest of the world.).

A top weight fabric means a lightweight fabric. A top weight fabric would typically weigh anything less than four ounces. An example of this would be a chiffon or possibly a batiste.

A torso weight fabric is a medium weight fabric. A medium weight fabric is between four and six ounces per square yard. An example of this would be muslin.

A bottom weight fabric is a heavy weight fabric. A bottom weight fabric is anything greater than six ounces per square yard (from 7-12 oz). An example of this would be stretch denim.

An extra heavy weight fabric is anything greater than 12 ounces (from 13-20 oz). An example of this would be regular denim.

Another important thing to understand are the differences and benefits between natural and synthetic fibers. The fabric you use, buy, and wear is made up of yarns which is made up of fibers.

Natural fibers occur, are formed, or are grown naturally.

Manufactured fibers are made by machine or man.

We'll start with natural fibers.

Natural fibers come from mainly plants and animals.

1) Plants: fibers can come from the seeds, the stem (bast), or the leaf.

• Seeds: The most used fiber made from plant seeds is cotton. 
• Properties of cotton: comfortable, absorbant, strong when wet, soft, easy to care for, washable, inexpensive, and durable. 
• The cotton plant itself comes in about 25 different shades of brown, green, and cream. #1 cotton country is China, #2 is India, #3 USA(the number one cotton growing state is Texas). 
• Cotton comes in approximately three lengths: Short staple (fibers .375"-.5" long mostly grown in China and India), Upland cotton (1"-1.5" long fibers mostly grown in USA. Organic cotton is also grown in USA. Organic means it was grown without the use of pesticides or herbicides), and long staple cotton -sometimes called PIMA cotton, Egyptian Cotton, or Sea island cotton- (fibers are 1.5"-2.5" long grown in South America, Peru, and Egypt mainly.). 
• Cotton has been in use for at least 7,000 years. It has been shown to maybe have existed in egypt as early as 12000 B.C. 
• Have more questions about cotton? Let me know
• Stem: also known as bast fibers and cellulose. There are several examples of these.
• Flax: Grown in Russia and the USA mainly (N & S Dakota).
• Makes the fabric Linen
• Linen is one of the oldest fibers
• most mummies were wrapped in linen cloth
• Linen is very durable and long lasting
• Hemp:
• Canada grows almost all of it, also Russia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.
• Sustainable fiber & organic
• Not prohibited to grow in the USA
• Has many different varieties
• The same plant as marijuana, but a different breed of it.
• Ramie:
• In the 40's and 50's US cotton farmers lobbied to keep other countries from selling cotton to the USA
• Put a quota on imported & exported cotton
• People called it "Ramie Cotton" but it's not actually cotton
• Ramie is a shiny but weak fiber
• It's much harder to care for than cotton.
• Grass fiber 'china grass'
• Hard to launder & manufacture.
• Jute:
• comes primarily from Bangladesh. 
• Usually seen in rope or twine
• Makes burlap- hessian cloth is another name for burlap
• thick and not very strong
• Also used in canal protection, riverbank protection, slope protection, drainage, replanting, weed control, and to prevent erosion. 
• Bamboo:
• Doesn't take to bacteria
• Over 300 different types
• Used for food
• Also used for building, weapons, musical instruments
• Started to become popular in the 70s and 80s
• Only two factories that try to Rett bamboo (getting the fiber out). It is really hard to get the fibers out of bamboo. 
• It is placed under natural fibers because it comes from nature; however, bamboo actually has to be regenerated before it can be used in fabric. The pulp has to be scooped out of the bamboo cane, and then it is mixed with natural byproducts to make it into a gel (viscose). After it becomes a viscose gel, it is run through a spinnerette (imagine a shower head) at a rapid and forceful pace. Because it is forced out so powerfully, it turns into a hardened fiber. 
• It is not a manufactured fiber because it is all natural. 
• It is a regenerated fiber which is a gray area between natural and manufactured.
• Corn Fiber:
• Viscose
• The corn is first harvested then the sugar (glucose) is extracted from the corn. The glucose put into a vat with genetically engineered organisms, water, and some vitamins and minerals this turns the corn glucose into a monomer. The monomer is shipped to a polymer plant where it is polymerized (mixed) with petroleum-based monomer TPA (terephthatlic acid). This turns it into a polymer. The polymer comes out in long strands that are then chopped into pellets. The pellets are shipped to a textile plant to be spun into fibers. The fibers will be used in clothing or carpets.

A great number of these you will never encounter in the fabrics you buy from stores, but it's good to know about them and where they come from. I'll cover the rest of the natural fibers and the manufactured fibers in the next few days, and then I'll start getting into more specific fabrics that you're likely to encounter, their uses, woven vs. knit, and other important things to know. Sorry this post was so long. I hope this becomes a good reference guide for everyone! I'll try to put some pictures in once I get a working scanner of some sorts. 

Summertime Fruit Delights

Sorry it's been a couple of weeks. My craft room is almost complete, and then I will be able to start with more crafty posts. For now, I have a brief food post.

The other day I went to my friend Ri's house to surprise her with frosties. It randomly started pouring rain on my way there, so when I got there, I practically ran to the door. I was banging on the door and ringing the doorbell. I knew she was home because her parents have been out of town, and she doesn't have her license yet. I decided to try going around back, and I discovered that the screen door was open. I went inside and was looking around for her. Then I heard the door open. Ri was standing there in her raincoat. She was picking raspberries. This sounded extremely sketchy to me because I had no idea that raspberries could even grow in Georgia or that there just happened to be some bushes in her backyard. Sure enough, we went out there and there were raspberry bushes. It's strange because I always thought that raspberries grew on tiny bushes like strawberries, but I guess it makes more sense for them to grow on huge ones. Anyway, we picked some raspberries, and here are the pictures. They were delicious.

 The raspberry bushes. This was after I'd picked quite a few.

 They were much smaller berries than I was anticipating. So adorable though. (is it weird that I think fruit is adorable?)

 Ri's pickin berries too!

 Gotta remember to wash them... I love the way this captured the individual water droplets.

 We ate a bunch of them plain, but we also ate them with banana bread, cool whip, and Nutella. Yum.

What are your favorite summer foods?

Tutorial: Strawberry Crescent Rolls

These are seriously so easy to make. Even if you can't cook, you can make these! Here's what you will need to make these delicious crescent rolls:

- Fresh strawberries. Four strawberries were plenty to make eight rolls.
- A baking sheet
- Tin Foil
- Whatever brand of pre-made crescent roll dough you prefer. I used pillsbury for this tutorial, but I've also used just a regular store brand that worked just as well. I actually liked the store brand better, but that's just me.

Preheat your oven following the instructions on the tube of crescent rolls.

Cover your baking sheet in tinfoil for quick and easy cleanup.

Open your tube of crescent rolls and carefully separate them all out onto the baking sheet. Don't worry about the spacing; you can adjust it later. Make note of the cook time before throwing out the tube.

Cut up the strawberries into fairly small pieces. The smaller the pieces are, the more you can fit into the rolls.

Spread out the strawberries on the crescent rolls and then carefully roll them up starting with the wide end first.

Bake the crescent rolls as per the instructions on the tube. Typically, they'll need the longer part of the bake time range. They should be golden when you remove them from the oven.

Serve as soon as they are cool enough to eat.

I know this is a simple recipe, but it's really awesome. You should try it. Let me know what you think!
Thanks for bumping along with me through my first tutorial. Currently all my crafting stuff is still in boxes waiting to be unpacked, so we'll get to the craftiness as soon as I am able to unpack.

Obligatory First Post

There's always a beginning. In movies, the beginning often starts with some sort of awkward scene to draw you in. I'm going to attempt to draw you into this post without the awkward scene, so let's just jump right on in.

She Makes What She Wants is a DIY blog written by an, currently, eighteen year old who went to art school for a year in the Big Apple and then decided to move back home to Georgia. Not necessarily because she enjoys Georgia, but because that is where she grew up and where her family resides. My name is Rachel. 

I would just like to say right now that I had written like five paragraphs and then decided to delete them.

I would also like to just kind of make you aware that I have a bit of ADHD, and I tend to jump around a lot in the middle of conversations. So please let me know if anything I say makes absolutely no sense. 

I am not entirely sure what this blog is going to be composed of besides hopefully a lot of fun projects and tutorials. I often become obsessed and buy a ton of one particular material, so hopefully I'll have a lot of stash busters too. I will say that there will probably be a lot of jewelry on this blog made up of pretty much any material that I can find. This will most likely be a blog with a ton of projects for accessories... I love accessories. There will be a good variety of techniques as well. I'm a sewer, but I'm also a heavy duty crafter and love finding new mediums to use and new things to make. There might even be cooking too. Who knows! I make what I want! And if you don't really feel like making any of the projects, but want one, chances are I'll post it on my etsy site. http://radrayray.etsy.com 

So here's to beginnings and figuring things out! Life is one big awkward moment, but at least we have people to share it with!