BS: Knitting with nettles

Subject: BS: Anyone for knitting with nettles?
From: Arnie
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 11:01 AM

Heard on a gardening programme today that in medieval times, people used to make clothes out of nettles!! I thought this must be a wind-up, but apparently in WW1 some soldiers' uniforms were made out of nettles. And recently someone has made a set of nettle underwear just to prove it can be done - not to be worn by those of a nervous disposition. So before you clear away that patch of old nettles at the bottom of the garden, just think of the money you can save by making your own designer clothes - just one problem though, how on earth do you go about converting a bunch of nettles into something wearable?? Slang for clothes is/was 'weeds' (as in a widow's weeds) so there's obviously something that rings true in this story.....

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: RichM
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 11:19 AM

Do a search using Google, for the words "knitting" and "nettles"

Lots of information.

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Sooz
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 11:25 AM

The stems are very fibrous and the fibres can be teased out, combed and spun just like hemp or flax. Only the leaves sting!

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 12:13 PM

You could knit yourself a sting vest :~)
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 12:13 PM

My dear old maternal grandmother used to collect old bits of used string (cotton type string) and when she had enough she knitted it into dishcloths. Serviceable and functional - not to mention ecological. Re-cycling for that generation was an economic necessity, not a fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 12:27 PM

YOUNG nettles make a very tasty pot green!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 12:33 PM

If you don gloves, and pick out the tips as if you were picking tea they make a lovely soup with a drop of chicken stock.
Giok (0)>
.....||

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Scooby Doo
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 01:44 PM

also very useful for the water butt for fertilizer

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 01:48 PM

Thsi thread is clearly a spoof, now stop being silly, somebody could get stung

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 02:03 PM

Heh, Les!

Yes, nettle tops are nice - kind of spinachy. You're only supposed to eat them in winter, up to St Patrick's Day, after which I think the Pooka does the bad thing with them, as he tends to do with blackberries after Hallowe'en.

There was a German traditional story about a girl who had seven brothers enchanted into swans; to reclaim them she had to make each one a shirt out of nettles, one per year; only when the last one was made would the seven boys be disenchanted, as it were. (There's also an Irish version of the same story.)

The King's son comes riding by her remote place in the nettly woods and falls for her, and brings her back to marry him. She's not a lively wife, sitting there all day hackling and spinning and weaving and sewing and not a word out of her.

The other women of the court, who had their eye on the lad themselves, were pretty jealous of her, and her lack of sparkling conversation doesn't help.

So when she has a baby, which is then stolen by a hag whose grey knobbly hand comes down through the chimney (this is the Irish version , and an image that used to give me nasty nightmares as a child), they accuse her of murdering the child, and she's condemned to death.

Even on the gallows she's sewing away madly on the last shirt. Just as she's about to be strung up the seven swans come flying through the skies, and she throws the seven shirts on them, and one by one they turn into youths. But she hasn't had time to finish the last shirt, which lacks a sleeve, so her youngest brother is left with one wing and one arm.

Can't remember the rest of it.

I think you can buy nettle fabric still; kind of sacking-like, as far as I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 02:23 PM

One full version of the tale related by Thompson above is Here (complete with 'geocities' pop-ups!

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: mg
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 03:54 PM

don't know about nettles but you can stuff pillows, vests etc. with cattail fluff..I also heard they stuffed life vests with it in WWII and it was Kapok. But I am not sure about that if it was the same plant or not. Also, in WWI they gathered the cranberry growers here in Washington and they gathered up the lichen or moss that grows nearby to use as bandage material...I think the same stuff that Native Americans used as diapers. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: JennieG
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 07:28 PM

Is this the same as netting with knittles?

Cheers
JennieG who is feeling silly - I'm on holidays, yippee!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Joybell
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 07:58 PM

We frequently go knittle netting, Jenny. By the light of the moon is best. That's when they come to the surface.
A familiar phrase out here is, "Have you seen our knittles rising?" to which is answered, "No but I'd like to!" Cheers back, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 01:56 AM

Yep, nettles can be tasty. Grind `em up and sprinkle them in your mashed potatoes.

"To keep in fine fettle, eat a nettle."

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:07 AM

What has Don Gloves done that warrants him being thrust into nettles?

Subject: RE: BS: Knitting with nettles
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 05:34 AM

Kapok
Giok