Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Ever since Udwin made this observation -

... for textiles, nettle seems almost on equal footing with flax in the old European archeology. If you have a good patch of them available off-property, you can still have fibres for fabric without sacrificing arable land. (Was on my mind since I spent a good chunk of my afternoon in seasonal Beorning gear, gathering a giant bundle from my patch while practicing other 'deep' skills.)

Re: On maintaining a Ranger: farm economics and deep authenticity

... I've kind of been on the lookout for nettle fabrics and references to same. There's Iodo's ramie shirt of course, and I'd come across a fair amount of coarse nettle fabric (mostly Tibetan in origin I think) I've been using for other projects..

But this looks really interesting - https://www.etsy.com/listing/1402222501 ... unic-early?
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1402229971 ... 65cm-width?

If the pieces I've found so far are anything to go by, it's got an interesting hand... kinda close to a coarser hemp. I don't think this piece is in my budget in the near future, but very cool! If anyone has experience with the stuff, I'm curious to hear how it goes.

Ughhh that stuff looks gorgeous, the herringbone especially. So much more character than plainweave rustic linen, but without being wool a la OWC/ECHO. (The way things are going, I get maybe 2 weeks each year when wool is needed. It was nearly 80*F here this week
Why does Europe get to have all the good stuff? Materials, locations, serious reenactors, temperatures...
I really need to poke around on etsy more (or at all, really)...

If the price for that tunic's too high, something worth looking for is - if you're willing to hack up historic textiles - old European grain sacks. I've seen some some made from ~hundred year old handwoven hemp (and maybe once or twice a nettle?) that have a gorgeous hand and a fair amount of life still in them. I also once found a child's sleeping tick in hemp I thought might made a decent browse bag. The fabric turned out to be far too heavy for that, but it was still very interesting stuff to play with - and not terribly expensive, plus a good look at authentic pre-industrial stitchery to boot.

There's some awesome stuff out there!

This is incredible stuff! Definitely the textile texture my kit is missing. Now I’m gonna go down a rabbit hole with this stuff lol

Yes, that is lovely. Thanks for showing!