Is Muslin Rubbish?

Subject: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 09:53 PM

Is muslin rubbish? They don't make that cloth any more do they.

Subject: BS: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Cluin
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 09:54 PM

No, but it IS B.S.

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: GUEST,bobbinboy
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 09:55 PM

The question is dear Guest, is muslin worth the bother of creating a thread?

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 10:00 PM

Ok, so it belongs in BS, but then so does Is Haggis Necessary or whatever it was.

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Cluin
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 10:01 PM

No it doesn't. This is different.

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 10:03 PM

The coarse cotton fabric called muslin is stil produced, and sometimes used by decorators.

I find the idiotic question, 'Is ---- rubbish?', obnoxious. It keeps appearing in Mudcat with regard to both people and objects.

This is definitely a below the line thread.

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 10:05 PM

Don't you mean below the hem?

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 12:35 AM

Muslin isn't that coarse - it's great for straining fruit out of homemade wine and using as a tea strainer if absolutely necessary.....

It also makes lovely underclothes.

LTS

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 12:37 AM

The coarse stuff you're thinking of is probably cheesecloth. That was much rougher and was actually used in making cheese....

LTS

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 01:47 AM

Liz- I took the definition out of a dictionary! Then I looked in Webster's Collegiate. It says: "A plain-woven sheer to coarse cotton fabric." So I look further and find that it is defined differently by the Oxford E. D. "The general name for the most delicately woven cotton fabrics, inc....(listing everything from dresses to curtains (drapes) etc.)".
Another fault line between the 'Old Country' and the 'New World'?
Almost as bad as biscuit and cookie!

Becoming pedantic (after perusing more of the OED), the real (original) muslin was a linen cloth from the Middle East but this definition apparently got lost through the years.

(I use cheesecloth, but for light shade in the greenhouse.)

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 08:13 PM

Of course muslin's not rubbish..... As long as it's a politician you are muslin.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 13 Aug 05 - 11:13 AM

And surprisingly, the name is not a corruption of Muslim. it would appear to originate as a fine cotton fabric, first made in Mosul, in the former Yugoslavia

Oxford dictionary of oxford etymology.

And it's very useful to have in the kitchen. (Muslein, or muslin, not the dictionary)

Subject: RE: Is Muslin Rubbish?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Aug 05 - 12:17 PM

It used to be good for butter, and where would Merchant Ivory films have been without it?
Giok