Monday, November 30, 2009

Another Modern Diamond Twill

Today I received a lovely sample of the cream-colored wool diamond twill Wollstoff sells. A scan of a portion of that sample appears to the left of this post.

The diamonds on this sample are definitely longer than they are wide, giving a good period impression. Each diamond is about a centimeter wide (measured vertically, the way I have the fabric oriented in this picture) and about 1.5 centimeters long (measured horizontally). The fabric, judging from the feel, is a medium weight.

My sample has no selvedges, so I can't determine warp and weft, but it appears to be about 12 threads per centimeter measured vertically.  I'm having trouble distinguishing the threads in the other direction. The sample looks much more authentic when you actually see the fabric, but even so, each diamond is made up of concentric ridges that don't seem, to me, to quite correspond with the historic specimens. Those ridges are quite pronounced, even more so than the similar ridges in the cream-colored Naturtuche fabric. Overall, however, I like the Wollstoff fabric very much; I'm a bit sorry that Wollstoff can't ship to me here in the United States.

11 comments:

  1. Hi Cathy,

    I live in the Netherlands. If you want this fabric, we might be able to work something out.

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  2. Thanks, Marije! I may take you up on that kind offer. Right now, life is busy enough here that considering whether I want to buy 2 meters of diamond twill is taking a back seat to other things.

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  3. Well if you can wait untill re-enactment season has started again. I might be able to pick it up in person, and save on the shipping cost Germany-Netherlands.
    Just let me know if you want it.

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  4. Hey Cathy,

    your scan looks a lot like "real" diamond twill (without the "tabby-lines" my wool-blend has). Would it be a lot of trouble for you to have a closer look on your sample? I could check it out next year in person, but I'm too impatient :)

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  5. Marije, When is "re-enactment season" where you are? June through August? Yes, I should know by then what I'm interested in doing about fabric and will let you know. Thanks!

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  6. Sanne, I can try scanning the Wollstoff twill at a higher resolution and see whether that helps. But that may take me a few days.

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  7. Re-enactment season over here is from April till Oktober. The vikingmarkets where I can, hopefully, pick-up your fabric are at the end of May and at the end of August.

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  8. Marije, I will let you know before May whether I would like some of Wollstoff's fabric or not, and if I do want to purchase, how much I want. Thanks again.

    In the meantime, I want to explore the possibility of getting some fabric from the Russian vendor another commenter mentioned.

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  9. Sanne, here is a photo of the diamond twill from Wollstoff at a higher resolution. After you've clicked on the link, you'll be in my Picasa album. Click on the little icon of a magnifying glass in the upper right hand corner to see it at the highest resolution. Hope this helps.

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  10. Thank you very much!
    It did help. Of course one can never see as much from a picture as one can see in person. But in the closeup it still looks like a regular broken diamond twill. Just the center looks a tiny bit odd (but still like broken diamond).
    I start to become a bit obsessed with all this analysing :)

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