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Quiz about Fabrics of Many Fibers Common and Unusual
Quiz about Fabrics of Many Fibers Common and Unusual

Fabrics of Many Fibers, Common and Unusual Quiz


No fake fibers here! These all come from plants and animals, but it's not all wool and silk either. Some of these fibers are very unusual, but keep an eye out for hints.

A multiple-choice quiz by littlepup. Estimated time: 3 mins.
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Author
littlepup
Time
3 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
384,446
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Easy
Avg Score
9 / 10
Plays
554
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Question 1 of 10
1. You may have heard of flaxseed, a health food supposedly good to sprinkle on your cereal. What cloth comes from the same plant? I wouldn't suggest grinding up your grandmother's handkerchiefs to put on your cereal, though. Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Doormats are one of the few things that can be woven from tough, bristly coir fibers. You may think I'm coocoo or nuts to start with such a difficult and obscure fiber so soon, but what does coir come from? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. What well-known fiber is made into men's suits that look free of dust and wrinkles, or made into winter coats, scarves, socks, and anytime you need a cloth that is still warm when damp? It's also used for blankets and afghans. It takes natural dye well, so was appreciated in the past when dyes were limited, and its main limitation today is its cost and heaviness for winter clothing. It comes from an animal. Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Mohair is a hard-wearing fiber with all the good qualities of wool, but more so. It takes dye even better, is more crease resistent, it lasts longer - you get the idea. What animal does it come from? Don't let my choice of the "mo" get your goat. Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. This fiber grows in warm climates and, until the introduction of modern machinery, required a lot of hand labor to pick its bolls. That created one of the greatest tragedies for a race of people in North America in modern times. What is this fiber, that used to be king? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. This luxurious, lustrous fabric, that ripples and flows when the wearer moves, and takes dyes wonderfully, is made by a bug. What bug? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. What native plant did Native American weavers take fibers from, thousands of years ago, according to archaeological finds? If I had to wear sandals made from this stiff, tough fiber, I'd say "yuck." Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. What animal that looks like a small llama is raised for its fleece in South America, Australia and other places that support similar grazing animals? Its name sounds like it could be a pack animal, but it's actually too small. Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. What fiber plant, also grown to make a common drug, was once woven into ship's sails, heavy bags, and sturdy cloth, as well as made into rope? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. What stinging plant loses its sting and behaves like linen when properly treated, and has been used by native people for fiber where it grows around the world? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. You may have heard of flaxseed, a health food supposedly good to sprinkle on your cereal. What cloth comes from the same plant? I wouldn't suggest grinding up your grandmother's handkerchiefs to put on your cereal, though.

Answer: linen

The flax plant can produce many different things, sometimes from literally the same plant, sometimes from a different cultivar of the same species. It grows in USDA hardiness zones 5 to 8, more northerly than cotton, and produces seed for linseed oil and health foods, and fibers for linen and coarser tow. Once it's processed to a certain point, the soft linen fibers are separated out to be made into very fine, crisp, long-wearing napkins, bedsheets, shirts, or knobbier textured cloth.

It doesn't take natural dyes well, so was often left white.

The tow was traditionally woven into coarser sacks.
2. Doormats are one of the few things that can be woven from tough, bristly coir fibers. You may think I'm coocoo or nuts to start with such a difficult and obscure fiber so soon, but what does coir come from?

Answer: coconuts

You've probable seen or felt that hairy stuff on the outside of a coconut shell. That's coir, and after processing, it yields a short fiber that can also be made into biodegradable erosion control mats for seeding hillsides, brushes, or just used as fluff to stuff mattresses, besides being spun and woven into mats.

It's usually left a natural tan. Most of the world's supply is processed in India and the surrounding areas.
3. What well-known fiber is made into men's suits that look free of dust and wrinkles, or made into winter coats, scarves, socks, and anytime you need a cloth that is still warm when damp? It's also used for blankets and afghans. It takes natural dye well, so was appreciated in the past when dyes were limited, and its main limitation today is its cost and heaviness for winter clothing. It comes from an animal.

Answer: wool

Wool used to be common for year round wear, before polyester, acrylic, Goretex and other fibers took over. Many people think of wool as just that itchy bulky stuff, but it can also be made into fine, lightweight men's suits with a smooth finish, and into summer sheers or calico-like prints for dresses, back in the old days, but it's not cheap.

When used for knitted winter wear like socks, mittens or hats, it was prized for its ability to keep its insulating quality even when wet. There was a health fad for wearing Dr. Jaeger's red wool union suits starting in the 1880s.

They covered most of the body in wool and supposedly avoided chills. A 1912 ad read: "JAEGER is the name, not of a fabric nor of a colour, but of a system. To be clothed in JAEGER means health and protection from chill, not merely because JAEGER Pure Wool is warm, but because it is non-conducting and porous..." The fad eventually faded, and Goretex fabrics have replaced the idea for winter exercisers nowadays, but wool once served many purposes.
4. Mohair is a hard-wearing fiber with all the good qualities of wool, but more so. It takes dye even better, is more crease resistent, it lasts longer - you get the idea. What animal does it come from? Don't let my choice of the "mo" get your goat.

Answer: angora goat

Mohair comes from the angora goat. There's also an angora rabbit, which causes some confusion, but only the curly hair of the goat becomes mohair. The goats were tried in various areas in the 19th Century - Australia, South Africa, the U.S. - but there was little success in the U.S. except in Texas, which is still one of the top producers of mohair today, along with Turkey, Argentina and South Africa, and Australia and New Zealand also produce some.

The goats can be sheared twice a year, but require better nutritional care than sheep and their fleece is more difficult to spin. Mohair blended with wool is used as suiting, and pure mohair can be used for upholstery and other tougher jobs.
5. This fiber grows in warm climates and, until the introduction of modern machinery, required a lot of hand labor to pick its bolls. That created one of the greatest tragedies for a race of people in North America in modern times. What is this fiber, that used to be king?

Answer: cotton

Cotton was king because it was the most profitable, easiest to grow, fiber plant on the rich soil of the American South. The invention and introduction of the cotton gin in the early 19th century meant fewer workers were needed to remove seed but more were needed to pick bolls, to stay even.

The solution was to keep just enough workers to take care of the cotton up to picking time, and make the pickers work extra hard. When the workers were enslaved and they were made to work by the threat of the whip, the results were disastrous. Only Native Americans have a claim of abuse on the same scale.

There was a war, which I won't go into, because it was more about a way of life by then, not just cotton. The boll weevil, cotton-picking machinery and polyester would have changed everything for better or worse by the 20th Century. All that occurred, in part, for a fiber that takes dye poorly, shows dirt, isn't very durable, but launders well and is like a runner-up to linen. People are strange.
6. This luxurious, lustrous fabric, that ripples and flows when the wearer moves, and takes dyes wonderfully, is made by a bug. What bug?

Answer: silk worms

Bombyx mori is the moth whose caterpillar form produces a valuable coccoon of silk fibers, but a few other species of moths are also used. The Chinese domesticated silkworm moths circa 5,000 years ago, and have continuously improved them for silk production.

There was a craze for silk raising in the U.S. in the early 19th Century, but despite the hope that fortunes would be made, the profits never materialized, and China remained the center of silk cultivation. When the silkworm makes its coccoon, it is killed with heat so it doesn't damage the fiber, then the fiber is unrolled.

After it is processed, it can be woven on a loom like any fiber, though it tends to be strong for its size. It dyes with bright and permanent colors, and also insulates from the cold.
7. What native plant did Native American weavers take fibers from, thousands of years ago, according to archaeological finds? If I had to wear sandals made from this stiff, tough fiber, I'd say "yuck."

Answer: yucca

Ancient sandals from yucca plants, woven without looms, have been found by archaeologists, and the fibers may have been used for other things as well. The leaves were soaked and pounded, and when fully processed, woven into sandals that archaeologists feel represent art as much as utility. My hint of "yuck" was just a hint; I actually am amazed at what basket weavers or twiners could accomplish from native plants.
8. What animal that looks like a small llama is raised for its fleece in South America, Australia and other places that support similar grazing animals? Its name sounds like it could be a pack animal, but it's actually too small.

Answer: alpaca

Strictly speaking, alpaca cloth can be made only from fibers of the alpaca, but sometimes other fibers such as mohair or Icelandic sheep's wool are sometimes intermixed. Similar to wool without lanolin, alpaca fiber is shiny like mohair, but softer. It was traditionally used for men's summer suits and lining in the 19th century, but has faded as artificial fibers have lowered prices. Alpacas are clean animals that can live on less feed than others their size, and their fiber is considered a luxury item, but prices of animals have varied from speculatively high to practical.
9. What fiber plant, also grown to make a common drug, was once woven into ship's sails, heavy bags, and sturdy cloth, as well as made into rope?

Answer: hemp

Fiber hemp and medicinal hemp are two cultivars of the same species, Cannabis sativa, but fiber hemp contains a fraction of one percent of the chemical wanted by drug users compared to the medicinal cultivar. It was traditionally used as a heavier, stronger kind of linen, and was processed similarly, but was made illegal to grow by the same laws that banned the medicinal plant.

Hemp fabric can be purchased in the USA when made overseas, and is usually either pure or blended with cotton or silk. As in the past, it is similar to canvas or other practical linen products, not fine linen.

It usually comes in a natural light tan color.
10. What stinging plant loses its sting and behaves like linen when properly treated, and has been used by native people for fiber where it grows around the world?

Answer: stinging nettle

Stinging nettle contains fibers like linen, so once its stinging tips are taken off, it can be retted and then further processed like traditional linen or hemp. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much work on commercially breeding or processing nettles, so the fabric is still an expensive novelty, used by high-fashion designers or lovers of organic things where price isn't the main concern.
Source: Author littlepup

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