A long  time ago, when I posted the difference and between muslin, voile, lawn, and batiste (among other fabrics), someone asked if I could explain the difference between brocade and jacquard.  I took a deep breath, and say “Yes, but it will take a while.” It certainly has, because it’s actually quite  a big question, and  there is so much confusion around it! A lot of the confusion come from the fact that while the appearance  of brocade has stayed very similar throughout history, the method of creating it has changed drastically.  Prior to 1801 brocades were woven on hand operated draw-looms by master weavers, who manually created the elaborate brocade patterns as they were woven in with the help of a drawboy, who stood on a perch above the loom.  Then, in 1801 Joseph Marie Jacquard demonstrated a  new invention (albeit one based partly on a series of  inventions from the 1740s-60s) – a loom which ran on cards with holes punched in them.  Each card represented one line of a pattern, with the …

When I made my fairytale inspired nettle smock, I promised to write a terminology post for ramie.  It’s taken me a little longer than expected, and I wish I’d been able to find more extent period examples of garments from nettle fabrics, but here ’tis.  Enjoy! Ramie is the generic name for a bast fibre fabric made from the stems of plants in the wider nettle family.  It is also known as nettle cloth, china grass cloth, grass linen, and rhea.  Most  of these names denote a specific plant source for the fibre.  Nettle cloth usually indicates fabric from the European Urtica dioica, the stinging nettle.  China grass cloth comes from  white ramie, and is considered to be better quality than rhea, which comes from  green ramie). Most of the  ramie that is sold today is china grass/white ramie, and comes from the plant  Boehmeria nivea,  native to China and Japan, but widespread throughout Asia from ancient times.  Both white and green ramie were used historically across Asia.  Nettle fabric in Europe was made from …