Calamity’s Clothing Thoughts

So Jesus had a lot of questions yesterday, and he really got my brain juices stirring.

Wool + knit? furs?

Do you have a sheep? Have you learned how to shear? Or how to make felt?

Would you recommend me growing cotton (or linen or…)? Do you have cotton seeds (or linen or…)? Do you know what are climate or water requirements and have planned/reserved land for these crops? What hardware is needed to create threads/strands/fabrics/clothes (apart from the sewing needle and scissor that is common ins bug out equipments)? What hardware is needed to create felt from wool?

On the other hand, I do not think you can make ALL your clothes with furs…  -Jesus

Wool is a good one to keep in mind, it can be made into yarn and knit into fabric, or felted for fabric. Spinning is simple to learn and requires simple tools to get results. See drop spindles for instance. Knitting is also done with really simple tools. Felting is a really simple process, needing only friction and warm soapy water. As for getting the wool off the sheep and formed into nice bats of wool, the sheep raisers or sheerers tend to specialize in that sort of thing. It would have to be quite the cataclysm to off everyone that knows how to sheer a sheep. Now sure, you could be familiar with the whole process, but you’ll probably find you gravitate towards a certain part of it, whether that’s sheering or spinning or knitting or felting. There’s a lot to learn in all of those, and they’ll keep you busy. Find and associate with like minded individuals and you’ll always be able to trade back and forth with other craftspeople. Most are also material cheap and time heavy, so they are great for when you just need to kill time and stay close to the homestead and keep your fidgeting to a useful form.

Furs and leathers will fill in some of the clothing needs that require toughness or weather resistance. This is one of the areas I really haven’t dived into yet. I’ve worked a little bit with faux furs, but I’m not sure that counts.

Zippers are likely to be some of the first points of failure for most of the clothing. If you can get practice ripping out zippers and putting in buttons or ties, you’ll keep more clothing serviceable for longer. Might have a nice side business too if you need it. That’s what I tell myself when I’m ripping yet another zipper out of some of hubby’s shorts.

I would probably grow hemp for ties. (You can make leather ties too.) Hemp would make you all sorts of straps and ties as well as fibers for blending into yarns or papers. Hemp strappings could keep those tire sandles on your feet. Hemp will self propagate in most places, given half a helping hand.

Just some thoughts from me.

Thanks for writing in Jesus! Keep the questions coming, we love to hear from readers.

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-Calamity Jane