{"id":438,"date":"2014-06-01T21:28:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T21:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/01\/the-magic-of-stinging-nettle-fibers-2\/"},"modified":"2014-06-01T21:28:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-01T21:28:00","slug":"the-magic-of-stinging-nettle-fibers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/the-magic-of-stinging-nettle-fibers-2.html","title":{"rendered":"The Magic of Stinging Nettle Fibers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nMagic Cloth of Nettle Fiber<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nFor many years I have been collecting stories from
\nliterature and cultural folklore concerning textiles that contain magical
\nproperties.  The magic may be due to
\ntechnique, the creator of the fabric, some supernatural intervention or the
\nfibers used.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nOne of my favorite fairy tales is called Wild Swans ( also
\n12 Swans or, sometimes,  12 Princes) by
\nHans Christian Anderson..  In this
\nstory, a beautiful princess weaves shirts made from the fibers of the stinging
\nnettle plant for her brothers.  The
\nyoung princes had been changed into wild swans by their wicked stepmother.  When the shirts were pulled over their heads
\nthe birds became young men again.  These
\nwonderfully soft shirts, made of something so unlikely, could reverse magical
\nspells and endowed the wearers with magical powers.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nStinging nettle, Urtica dioica, is a herbaceous perennial
\n1-2 meters in height, found abundantly in northern Europe and Asia, less
\ncommonly found in Canada and US.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe underside of the leaves have slender hairs containing
\nseveral toxic chemicals which are released when brush against., hence its name.   The textile fiber is a bast fiber found in
\nthe stem and is processed like flax. The finished fabric has a soft hand and
\nhas been used for bed linens and clothing. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>Nettle yarn<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>Asian woman knitting with nettle fiber<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n 
\nNettle, which was still used widely in northern, central and eastern
\nEurope into the 20thC, was found in a Danish tomb dating to 1,000BCE.  White fibers found at archeological sites
\nwhich had been thought to be flax have been shown much later to be nettle.  When Germany and Austria ran short of cotton
\nduring WWII, the value of nettle was recognized and 2 species were chosen for
\ntextiles.  It is estimated Germany
\nharvested over two thousand tons of wild nettle to weave fabric for their
\nsoldiers.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nNettle has also been used as a food product.  The toxicity is destroyed with cooking.  When my husband and I traveled to Istanbul several
\nyears ago we were served nettle as a vegetable.  I must confessed I was rather under-whelmed, it was much like
\ncooked spinach.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magic Cloth of Nettle Fiber For many years I have been collecting stories from literature and cultural folklore concerning textiles that contain magical properties.  The magic may be due to technique, the creator of the fabric, some supernatural intervention or the fibers used. One of my favorite fairy tales is called Wild Swans ( also…<\/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-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","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=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}