Yes, I agree, it's all about death and pertains to a widow who has to 'mourn' for one year before marrying again. Cut the cloth is to do with making and wearing new coloured clothes (she would have worn the one black dress all year) while the cup reference is to the lack of celebration in times of mourning. She swears one year's allegiance of mourning for her dead husband but will not stop 'living'. She feels sorry for all others yet to be afflicted with her grief - the cold north wind - and she acknowledges that all will follow the winding road of death eventually...
I LOVE this song and see it as a woman's funeral song!