Huck Towels????

[KarinTimour]

Re: Huck Towels????

Dear Paul:

I'd love to see a bully buy on huck toweling -- I'd rather buy the yardage and cut my towels to size -- then I could make period dish towels as well as personal towels. I'm with Susan on this one, please do encourage Mr. Kline do think about it.

Sincerely,
Karin Timour
Period Knitter -- Socks, Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[MrsArmstrong]

Re: Huck Towels????

Yes...by the yard would be better.
In the book From Fireplace to Cookstove Technology And The Domestic Ideal In America by Priscilla J. Brewer, there is a lithograph of a kitchen and on the far right wall is a hanging towel rack. It is something like brackets with a bar across and the long looped towel hung on it.
It is on page 180, "Prang's Aids for Object Teaching:The Kitchen." "Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worchester, Mass." It is dated 1874 and looks just like what is writted in the Work Woman's Guide 1838.
Susan Armstrong

[Yulie]

Re: Huck Towels????

Once you get your huckabuck: The Workwoman's Guide (mid 1840s) says that a towel should be 36 inches long. You can hem the ends, or unravel about a half an inch on each end, both are period correct.

Karin gave one of the sources I use to make the towels. Also, the US Sanitary Commission gave the 36-inch spec in their inventory requests. The 36-inch is idea for washing AND drying off as this was one of the methods for bathing. One end was used for water, the other end for drying. I have made SEVERAL towels from what is called Aida cloth here in the Great Lakes Region. Same as what ya'll call huck: white and I have also found it in a light bluish/gray color. Also, in the GLR the fabric is often in the interfacing section -- go figure.

Yulanda

[Spinster]

Re: Huck Towels and a Bully Buy

[QUOTE=Yulie] I have made SEVERAL towels from what is called Aida cloth here in the Great Lakes Region. Same as what ya'll call huck:

UMMMM--no. Standard commerical Aida cloth has a different weave structure than huck. Both do have the same amount of absorption when made from proper period materials, but I somehow ended up with a quanity of Aida with a polyester content a few years back--like to never got the supplier to take it back.

I too would be up for a Bully Buy of huck--and cast my vote for uncut yardage as well. I came into some linen huck in a trade a few months back, thinking it would be an exceptionally fine thing for period use--alas, linen towels are so coveted in my family that they have been hijacked for modern use and I doubt I shall get them back.

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Huck Towels and a Bully Buy

One of my favorite "textile dictionaries" (my only gripe is that they refer to FIBER instead of WEAVE, which is what they're most often describing!
:
The Internet Center for Canadian Fashion & Design:

http://www.ntgi.net/ICCF&D/textile.htm

Huckaback
Fibre: Linen, cotton.
Weave: Dobby or basket.
Characteristics: It is strong. Rough in the surface finish but finer, shinier than cotton huckaback. Has variation in weaves but most have small squares on the surface that stand out from the background. Comes in white, colours, or coloured borders. Also stripes. The motif is made from a series of floats, some of them rather long, which gives a loose effect in certain areas. This, if well spaced, acts as a good absorbing agency.
Uses: Mostly used for towelling.

As aida cloth is an evenweave designed for counted embroidery, it's not going to have the same weave as a dobby or basket huck.


From another favorite textiles thingy, this time Fabric University: http://www.fabriclink.com/AH.html#A

Dobby Weave
A decorative weave, characterized by small figures, usually geometric, that are woven into the fabric structure. Dobbies may be of any weight or compactness, with yarns ranging from very fine to coarse and fluffy. Standard dobby fabrics are usually flat and relatively fine or sheer. However, some heavyweight dobby fabrics are available for home furnishings and for heavy apparel.

Basket Weave
A variation of the plain weave construction, formed by treating two or more warp yarns and/or two or more filling yarns as one unit in the weaving process. Yarns in a basket weave are laid into the woven construction flat, and maintain a parallel relationship. Both balanced and unbalanced basket weave fabrics can be produced. Examples of basket weave construction includes monk cloth and oxford cloth.

[Yulie]

Re: Huck Towels and a Bully Buy

Huckaback
Fibre: Linen, cotton.
Weave: Dobby or basket.
Characteristics: It is strong. Rough in the surface finish but finer, shinier than cotton huckaback. Has variation in weaves but most have small squares on the surface that stand out from the background. Comes in white, colours, or coloured borders. Also stripes. The motif is made from a series of floats, some of them rather long, which gives a loose effect in certain areas. This, if well spaced, acts as a good absorbing agency.
Uses: Mostly used for towelling.

Elizabeth,

Thanks for the source. I should be more careful using "same as" regarding regionally differences and comparison. The cloth I purchase on a bolt labeled "aida toweling" in my region resembles the description above. It is not the counted embroidery fabric. Initially it was questioned as huckaback. The confusion was cleared up with hands-on comparison of a towel in the Chicago Historical Museum's US Sanitary Fair exhibit in the '80s. Burn test on this cloth also says it's 100 percent cotton. Several years later, this fabric store chain still mislabels it regionally. There is just something about Joann's in the Great Lakes region regarding labeling their textiles. I have also found white cotton organdy mislabeled muslin at less than a dollar a yard. I am just waiting for them to slap a polyster label and applicable price on a bolt of 100 percent silk.

-Yulanda

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Huck Towels and a Bully Buy

Sometimes their ignorance is our bliss! I came across some great Italian organdy that way at Joann's, labelled "cheesecloth!!" at $2/yard. Needless to say, I bought the bolt. LOL

Thanks for the further clarification on the towelling you had!

[Annette Bethke]

Re: Huck Towels????

I found 100% cotton huck towels at Garden Ridge of all places.

[Michael Semann]

Re: Huck Towels????

Wow is this reviving an old thread! I received a notification in my Email alerting me to a new post discussing this, and had to strain my ever diminishing memory banks to remember the topic. :D

Cheers for the heads up though, Annette.