Ratteen (Ratine
) was a thick
napped twilled
woolen
Woolen (American English) or woollen (Commonwealth English) is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast t ...
material.
Ratteen was produced in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
and Holand.
Varieties
There are several varieties of course ratteen, such as
drugget
Druggett or drugget is "a coarse woollen fabric felted or woven, self-coloured or printed one side". Jonathan Swift refers to being ''"in druggets drest, of thirteen pence a yard"''.''The Uffculme wills and inventories: 16th to 18th centuries'', p. ...
,
baize
Baize is a coarse woollen (or in cheaper variants cotton) cloth, similar in texture to felt, but more durable.
History
A mid-17th-century English ditty—much quoted in histories of ale and beer brewing in England—refers to 1525:
Hops, her ...
and
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
. It was produced in various options; for instance, similar to
broadcloth
Broadcloth is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width but the fact that it was woven much wider (typically 50 to 75% wider than its finished width) and then he ...
, without shearing the
pile and, another one was with friezed
nap
A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to drowsiness during waking hours. A nap is a form of biphasic or polyphasic sl ...
surface. There was also a
mix of wool and
linen in 50% ratio.
Rattinet
Rattinet (Ratinet) was a thinner variety of ratteen.
See also
Frieze (textile)
In the history of textiles, frieze (French: ''frisé'') is a Middle English term for a coarse woollen, plain weave cloth with a nap on one side. The nap was raised by scrubbing it to raise curls of fibre, and was not shorn after being raised, l ...
References
Woven fabrics
Waulked textiles
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