What is full cloth?

Fulling is the process of beating woven woolen cloth while wet to cause the opposing fibers to interlock and form a more homogenous textile. Although fulling cloth was a common practice much earlier, mechanized fulling mills appeared in Europe in the 12th century.

What does spun from whole cloth mean?

Entirely fictional or utterly false; completely fabricated and not based on reality at all. A reference to tailors who would falsely advertise garments being made “out of whole cloth,” when, in reality, they were pieced together from different cuts.

What does Waulking wool mean?

fulling
Waulking is another word for fulling, a step in woolen clothmaking that refers to the practice of cleansing the cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities. Fulling involves two processes, scouring and thickening, and is one of the steps in creating melton cloth.

Is Tweed soaked in urine?

Originally this was done by literally ‘walking’ (i.e. treading) the fabric in water, perhaps treated with a proportion of urine for its ammonia as a cleansing agent. But don’t worry, nowadays the process involves nothing more than pure water.

What does it mean to fall head over heels?

Completely, thoroughly, as in They fell head over heels in love. This expression originated in the 1300s as heels over head and meant literally being upside down.

How are you going to define whole?

comprising the full quantity, amount, extent, number, etc., without diminution or exception; entire, full, or total: He ate the whole pie.

What does it mean to walk the tweed?

Waulking is an essential part of the production the woollen fabric known as tweed. What it does is raise the nap (making the fabric slightly “fluffy”), set the dye and shrink the fabric (giving it it’s characteristic feel and enhancing its waterproof qualities).

Why was urine used on wool?

Originally, fulling was carried out by the pounding of the woollen cloth with a club, or the fuller’s feet or hands. Urine was so important to the fulling business that it was taxed. Stale urine, known as wash, was a source of ammonium salts and assisted in cleansing and whitening the cloth.