Nettle cloth does not sting.
Say so to most people and watch their expression change. We tend to picture a fabric made from stinging nettles as coarse and hessian-like, something to endure on the skin. In fact the fibre inside the stem is remarkably fine, almost silk-like, and in ancient Europe nettle cloth was traded as a luxury good. For over 3,000 years it has been made into everything from heavy sailcloth to fine table linen.
The humble beginnings of the nettle in fairy tales and folklore, as featured in Wild Nettles by Brigitte Kaltenbacher.
So where did that knowledge go? Mostly into fairy tales. In The Wild Swans, a sister works nettles into garments to break a spell on her brothers, and for many of us that story is the last trace of nettle as a textile plant. Brigitte Kaltenbacher's new book, Wild Nettles, sets out to bring the fibre back into the maker's hands. Crowood Press publishes it at the end of October or in early November.
Cover of Wild Nettles: From Foraging to Fibre by Brigitte Kaltenbacher
An introduction to making yarn and textiles from Nettles, as featured in Wild Nettles by Brigitte Kaltenbacher.
Kaltenbacher is a sustainable textile designer-maker and researcher who handweaves cloth from nettles and local wool, and works with organic bast fibres too. Her fascination began in 2014, after she watched John Paul Flintoff's video about nettles as a textile plant, and she made them part of her MA in Textiles research in 2015. She assumed the idea was new until she learned that Neolithic makers had beaten her to it. With little documentation surviving, she rediscovered a working process through experiment and research. Today she teaches sustainable textiles and fibre processing at universities and heritage museums, and founded BeeKay Makes...
(...)
Want to read more of this article?
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?
Magazine subscribers automatically get free access to all of our online content.
We send the access code by email with the publication of each issue. You will also find it on the envelope containing your magazine.
Please note the access code changes every issue.
We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds.
. . .
Further Information:
Wild Nettles: From Foraging to Fibre by Brigitte Kaltenbacher will be published by The Crowood Press at the end of October/early November.
Brigitte Kaltenbacher: @beekaymakes
. . .
Image Credits:
Lead: Nettle fibres by Brigitte Kaltenbacher. Courtesy of the artist.
Grown and foraged in the UK, hand processed with simple artisanal tools, hand spun on spindles and spinning wheels, naturally dyed with madder, walnut hulls, iron, coreopsis and woad.
All further images as credited in captions.