Stories are from 2007. 

Why Our Ancestors Owned Only One Shirt

      Your great, great, great grandfather probably owned only one shirt. We, the ultimate consumer generations, can hardly imagine such restriction. 

      Great, great, great grandmother more than likely made that single shirt. She had to grow, gather, ret, clean, spin and weave the flax (known to us as linen). Or she raised sheep for wool. Then, the sheep were sheared, usually but not always by a man; the wool skirted, washed, dried, picked, carded, spun, and then woven or knit into a garment. This was all done while G,G,G- grandmother was minding the children, doing the laundry, milking the cow, cooking the meals, cleaning the house, tending the sick. Many a woman nodded off over her spinning wheel by the nightly fire.

      In preparation for the upcoming Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival, October 27^th and 28^{th (2007)}, the Education Committee decided to figure out how much effort a garment actually took and what it would cost in today’s dollars. They computed the actual minutes/hours taken to make a specific garment—a medium size woman’s sweater—and multiplied that time by US minimum wage. Here are the results.

• Shearing one Icelandic breed sheep (enough for one sweater) 7 minutes
• Skirting the fleece (the nasty job of trimming off the dirty ends) 20 minutes
• Washing and drying the fleece (actual hands on time)  2 hours
• Picking the wool (pulling it apart to make it usable)   3 hours
• Carding the wool, 2007 style by hand machine (by comb, 20 hrs) 3 hours
• Spinning (making yarn)      50 hours
• Knitting the sweater       47 hours

       That’s a total of 105 hours and 27 minutes. Multiply that by $5.75 per hour and the cost of your sweater comes to $606.63. This does not include the cost of raising that rare breed sheep, its food and vet bills. Can you afford this sweater?

      This very same sweater might be yours. Every Sunday adult (12 and older) Festival attendee will receive a free raffle ticket for this garment. The drawing will be held at 3:30 p.m. If you’re a Saturday attendee and want the sweater, you may purchase tickets at the Festival Raffle Booth

      Back to your ancestors. If great, great, great grandmother had only two children, she would have to work 422 hours to clothe each family member in a single sweater. Translate that to a shirt and you may add even more time. Weaving is very labor intensive and then you have to consider the cost of cutting out and sewing the shirt, adding the buttons, etc.

    Come visit the festival.  You might just be the winner of a $600 sweater.

Lovely Lila Seeks Second Leg

      No one could disagree. Lila is gorgeous. A bit proud, maybe. Justifiably so, as this English Angora rabbit won a “leg” on her initial appearance in the show cage. Eighteen month old Lila will be attending the sanctioned rabbit show at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival on October 27 and 28  at the Ruritan Clarke County Fairgrounds in Berryville, Virginia.

      A “leg” is likened to points toward championship. A rabbit must attain three legs in order to be declared a Grand Champion. Animals are judged on color, body type, wool, and the standards of their specific breed. Lila shows in the Senior Doe class. (Females are does, males are called bucks, babies are known as kits, and the process of birthing is called kindling.)

      Lila is not just a beauty pageant gal. She’s a loving pet as well. Lila responds to human hugs and kisses and gives nose nuzzles in return. She loves to be brushed, a weekly necessity with all that lovely, long hair. Lila gets plucked or clipped about four times a year. A svelte little rabbit, Lila weighs about five pounds.

      The Blue Ridge Rabbit and Cavy Club, headquartered in Jefferson County, West Virginia, sanctions this fiber breed show. Judged will be all four Angora breeds, Jersey Wooleys, and American Fuzzy Lops. Judging begins at 9 o’clock on Sunday, October 28.

      Rabbit wool is about seven times warmer than sheep’s wool. Their individual fibers are hollow, acting as insulation. Thus, one would not want a garment made from 100% rabbit fur unless they lived in the Arctic. A rabbit’s soft undercoat has crimps much like sheep’s wool. However, it has many more coarse guard hairs than its fellow fiber animal, the sheep. A rabbit’s fur must be at least 2” long to enter a show, but can normally grow up to 6”. A judge inspects a rabbit’s wool by blowing into its coat. In this manner, the judge gets a clear view of the crimped undercoat.

Come visit Lila at the festival!