Hand-Woven Clothes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 100, 23 May 1941, Page 5

Hand-Woven Clothes

HAND-WEAVING, of course, is still popular in some parts of Britain. The peasants in both Scotland and Ireland still card and spin and weave their own wool. These hand-woven tweeds are thicker and coarser than the fine Bradford machinemade, worsteds, Usually they are bolder in pattern, with a fleck or dash of some brighter colour against the dark or natural background. A coat or costume

or one of these hand-woven Scottish or Irish tweeds will last and keep its shape for years and years and years. Often, when you are motoring through some little village, you may come across a cottage where these tweeds are woven, and can buy a length of material comparatively cheaply. I don’t think any American visitor ever goes to Scotland or Treland without taking home a

few lengths of this hand-woven tweed. England also has its hand-weaving centres, and they turn out some very beautiful work. I have come across several little colonies of weavers when I have been ‘travelling through England, tucked away in villages, They make rather beautiful scarves, too, as well as other materials. And in London, there were small shops which act as agents for these hand-weavers. But down in Cornish villages some of these hand weavers did a prosperous business with tourists and motorists, particularly as they were near popular resorts.-"Shoes and Ships and Sealing-wax," by Nelle Scanlan, 2Y A, April 22).