Ramie was trendy in the 1980s. I had a couple of 100% ramie blouses.
They were like a slightly bristly linen, less shiny after ironing, and
did not wear quite as well as linen. They retained dye at about the
same level as linen, that is, less well than cotton.
Then again, some of that may have been due to the quality of the
blouses, which although not rock bottom quality/label/price were not
high end, either.
Fran
Lavolta Press
Books of historic clothing patterns
www.lavoltapress.com
www.facebook.com/LavoltaPress
On 3/12/2013 7:40 AM, Kate Bunting wrote:
I once had a cardigan which included ramie fibre. According to Wikipedia this is the same plant as
the "Chinese grass" that Fran mentioned, a kind of nettle. Apparently it is difficult to
use alone as it doesn't stretch and has many projecting "hairs". I can vouch that this is
true of stinging nettle fibre, which I once had a try at hand-spinning.
Kate Bunting
Librarian & 17th century reenactor
Derby, UK
_______________________________________________
h-costume mailing list
h-costume@mail.indra.com
http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
