We take making clothes back to basics!

Jack cards the wool for Esther to spin it

At Colchester's Young Archaeologists' club March meeting we looked at the fibres and fleeces which  even Stone Age communities used to clothe themselves. Archaeologists have discovered woven cloth which dates from the Stone Age. These were made from the fibres found between the bark and wood of trees. Other raw materials available to our ancestors is wild cotton, flax for linen, nettle fibre and the favourite for the British Isles, fleeces from sheep  were spun and woven into cloth. 

    Thanks to a generous donation of fleeces, wool combs and spindles a team of Jack, who combed the raw wool and Esther, who became a dab hand at spinning it, didn't have enough time to weave the impressive amount of  thread they produced between them.

    Others learned they could produce clothes by knitting or crocheting the finished thread or produce a trim or tie with a lucet.

     We tried weaving techniques and styles on cardboard looms.

    There was a chance to experiment with origami to make dinosaurs and pterodactyls and to date some more fossils which have been generously donated to us.