Proverbs 31:13, 19, 21-22 Textiles
Today we will look at our wife of excellence’s skills with textiles, from acquiring to creating fine clothing and bed coverings. Her work is of the finest quality.
We looked at a couple of areas already for our wife of excellence; her character and her cooking. Today we will look at the broad spectrum of her skills with textiles, fabric. Not only could this woman sew but she made her own cloth!
She didn’t have a local fabric store to frequent. Her fabrics started with a diligent search for raw materials. We aren’t told that she sheered the sheep or harvested the flax herself. She probably wouldn’t have had time, but she did have time to find good quality raw materials to work with.
After bring home her raw materials, she set about her work of creating thread from them. Yes, the wool and flax had to be worked through SEVERAL procedures before they were even ready to be thread that could be weaved into cloth. This also included dying the fibers for the desired colors. I’ve found several videos I would like to share: processing sheered fleece into spun yarn, processing flax into fibers for spinning, and spinning flax with a drop spindle.
Once the thread or yarn was created, it was time to weave it into cloth, most often linen. This involved deciding on what pattern you wanted to display on your final project too. MANY beautiful patterns can be created by someone who knows what they are doing with a loom; of which there are also MANY kinds. These video take you on a quick tour of fleece to fabric and flax to fabric using loom than our wife of excellence might have had.
Finally, fabric is created. Now it’s time to cut up all that hard work and turn it into garments. Making bed coverings probably didn’t involve cutting the cloth that was created. I would probably cry if I had to cut something I had spent that much time creating! But not everyone is the same size and this mother had many people to sew for in her household.
We see mention of the quality of her work in several places. In verse 21 we see that her cloth is thick enough to keep her family warm in winter but verse 22 has her also wearing find linen which is much lighter. The colors of her cloth are those of signifying wealth; scarlet and purple.
I’m going to force myself to stop here with this amazing woman’s work because I want to focus on each part separately. I know they all work together to create the picture of the wife of excellence but she didn’t get there in one step. Neither do we.
Just watching the videos I linked to earlier makes me tired! Think of how much work this woman did on a daily basis!!! And the textile work was only a part of her daily life. I cannot imagine being this woman. I find it time consuming enough to imagine the garment I want to create, go to the fabric store, find appropriate supplies, come home, cut my pieces from the fabric I purchased READY MADE, sew it on my electric sewing machine, complete any hand sewing sections, and do any alterations that need done. I LOVE sewing but if I had to take it from ground zero, I might never do it again! But if I grew up doing it, then I might have a different view of the process.
My take away today is “WOW” and “Thank You Father that I live in this era!” I wonder how much help she had. Were her children a help in this process? Were her maidens? Did she teach others as she worked and benefited from their help? Again; WOW!
Father God, thank You for giving each of us talents. Thank You for inspiring people throughout the ages to come up with inventions to make my life easier. Thank You for allowing us to learn techniques such as the ones shown today. YOU are the author of wisdom. YOU inspire us to grow in knowledge. Did Eve learn to spin and weave or was she content with the animal skins You provided for her family? Did You transform the animal skins into cloth? I think I have a few new questions for “bench time” again. Thank You for inspiring my imagination and curiosity. Thank You too that I’m not relegated to the “one fiber” rule that was in Your Law given through Moses. Even with single fiber sources this woman was able to create amazing garments.
