{"id":320,"date":"2017-08-04T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T19:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/04\/magic-clothes-of-power-episode-1-the-wild-swans\/"},"modified":"2017-08-04T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T19:11:00","slug":"magic-clothes-of-power-episode-1-the-wild-swans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/magic-clothes-of-power-episode-1-the-wild-swans.html","title":{"rendered":"Magic Clothes of Power:- Episode 1, The Wild Swans"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nMagic Cloths of 
\nPower<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nFor many years I have been asked to present lectures on
\nvarious textile topics.  One of my very
\nfavorite topics I will share with you over several months : Magic Clothes of  Power.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nI once had read a book by Barbara Michaels about a \u201cbad\u201d
\nquilt.  It was not poorly constructed,
\nnot green and purple and orange, it was EVIL. and very dire consequences befell
\nanyone who came to be associated with this textile.  So I began gathering stories and information about textiles that
\nhad intrinsic powers.  Not represented
\npower, such as flags or military uniforms, but possessed actual , beyond the
\nnorm, abilities.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nFolklore and literature abound with these legends.  However there are equally as many accounts
\nof peoples and cultures that, today, believe that certain textiles have been
\nempowered in some way either by their creator, or the fibers and materials used
\nin their manufacture, or by some divine intervention.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

                                                     
\n                                                      Fabric-  England, Chintz, c.1835<\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nToday, I go to literature for such an account: \u201cWild Swans\u201d,
\nDenmark, Hans Christian Anderson.<\/div>\n
\nIn this story, a beautiful princess weaves shirts made from
\nthe fibers of the stinging nettle plant for her 11 brothers.  It seems that their evil stepmother had cast
\na spell upon the boys, turning them into wild swans.  A good witch told the princess the completed shirts, when worn by
\nher brothers, would turn them from swans back into young men again.  These wonderfully soft shirts made of
\nsomething so unlikely could reverse magical spells and would endow their
\nwearers with magical powers. And so it was.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThere is, usually, in the background of such  stories a grain of truth.  In this case, it is the fiber of the nettle
\nplant.  Stinging nettle \u2013 Urtica dioica,
\nis a herbaceous perennial 1-2 meters in height, found abundantly in boggy areas
\nin northern Europe and Asia, less commonly found in Canada and US.  The underside of the leaves are found with
\nslender hairs containing several toxic chemicals which are released when
\nbrushed against causing itching and pain.<\/div>\n
\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

\nThe textile fiber is a bast fiber found in the stem and is
\nprocessed like flax.into very soft , supple fabric. Nettle, which was still
\nused in northern, central and eastern Europe well into the 20th<\/sup> C,
\nwas found in a tomb in Denmark dating to 1,000 BCE.  White fibers originally believed to be flax by archeologists were
\nlater shown to be nettle.  When Germany
\nand Austria ran short of cotton during the war, the value of nettle was recognized
\nand 2 species were chosen for textiles. 
\nIt is estimated that Germany harvested over two thousand tons of wild
\nnettles to weave fabric for their shoulders.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSeveral years age, my husband and I were dining in a restaurant
\nin Istanbul which served us steamed nettle, apparently the toxins are
\neliminated by cooking.  Frankly , it
\ntasted much like any cooked green.<\/div>\n

\nI will share more of these textile tales in upcoming blogs.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magic Cloths of  Power For many years I have been asked to present lectures on various textile topics.  One of my very favorite topics I will share with you over several months : Magic Clothes of  Power. I once had read a book by Barbara Michaels about a \u201cbad\u201d quilt.  It was not poorly constructed,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}