Making Cloth on the Farm

Optional audio recording of the text on this page.

Making Cloth on the Farm.mp3

Vocabulary

Weaving: A process of turning threads into cloth.

Loom: A machine used to make cloth. A loom can be hand-powered, as it would be on a farm, or water-powered, as looms were in the early factories.

Shuttle: A device that holds thread during the weaving process.

Making Cloth by Hand

Living on a farm means you and your family probably make your own cloth and clothing. You use the wool from sheep to make wool cloth that you will make into warm winter clothing. Making cloth is a long process and a lot of work for the family. See below to find out how it is done.

Primary Document

“I have finished my weaving for this year (in May). I wove a hundred and forty yards since the ninth of March.”

In the 1820s, 140 yards of cloth makes approximately:

6 shirts
3 pairs of pants
3 dresses
3 coats
2 sets of bed sheets, and
9 pairs of underwear.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Shearing1.mp4

Sheep Shearing

First the sheep need to be sheared or shaved. To do this, your father or older brother uses a pair of giant scissors to remove the sheep's wool. They don't hurt the sheep. It is just like getting a haircut.

Take a look at this video from Old Sturbridge Village of a farmer shearing a sheep.

Carding2 (1).mp4

Carding Wool

After the sheep are sheared, you must card the wool. The carding process brushes out the wool to make it soft and ready for spinning. As a child, you card wool as one of your jobs on the farm. It may take you many days to card the wool from your flock of sheep.

Take a look at the video to see carding in action.

Spinning(2).mp4

Spinning

Once you card all the wool, your older sister or mother must turn it into thread using a spinning wheel like this. She holds the carded wool in her left hand while spinning the wheel with her right. The movement of the wheel twists the wool into a tight string. This is how yarn is made.

Take a look at this video from George Washington Birthplace National Monument to see how spinning is done.

weaving1.mp4

Hand Weaving

Finally, the yarn has to be woven into cloth.

If your family can afford it, you might have a large loom like this one. The weaver moves the shuttle back and forth through the other yarns to bind them together.

Take a look at this video from Mount Vernon, George Washington's estate, to see weaving.

Making Cloth on the Farm Questions

Pull out your paper and pencil and answer the questions below. Later, you will transfer your answers to a Google Form to submit them to your teacher.

Now that you know more about the process of making cloth, what do you think about the amount of clothing a family would have?
What other items would a farm family have needed cloth for besides clothing? Think about the items you use every day that are made out of cloth.

Quote: Diary of Elizabeth Fuller, May 3, 1792, Old Sturbridge Village.

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