A Smidgen of Saturday School

Gosh, I'd forgotten how much I absolutely LOVE learning. We had our second textiles class a couple days ago and I'm just eating up all the information; I've already read waaaay ahead in our textbook because it's so fascinating, not to mention doing extra research on the details that the textbook doesn't include.

We've been learning about the different categories of natural textiles: cellulosic fibers (plant-based, like cotton and linen) and protein fibers (animal-based, like wool and silk). I find it so interesting how the chemical structure of these macromolecules can affect all the fabric qualities that I already know about from sewing, like strength, abrasion resistance, elasticity, resilience, and lustre. I'm just sad that our professor isn't actually a chemistry person, because I want to know more about the stuff that she and our textbook just gloss over, like the polymers' side chain interactions and the importance of hydrogen bonding! I really think that if I were to redo my undergrad, I'd want to change my major from bio/psych to fiber science. Doesn't this blurb from Cornell sound so fascinating? Oh, whoops, excuse me, my nerd is showing.

Because I don't have any sewing to show, I thought I'd share my notes from class instead:

In order to keep from being bored in class (like most teachers, I'm a terrible student -- easily bored and distracted and always thinking about how I could teach something better), I ended up illustrating my notes. Actually, when I was bored in undergrad, I used to take notes in Elvish (i.e. transliterating by using the Quenya alphabet), but that ended up being a problem when I tried to look back at my notes a few years later, but had forgotten my Elvish.

We talked about how the orientation of the fibrils can affect the strength, elasticity, and wickability of various fibers. Also, wool requires a combination of water, heat, and agitation to compact the amorphous fibers (hence the tendency of wool sweaters to shrink in the wash)...so if you were to soak a sheep, get it very warm, and then roll it around a lot, its coat would shrink? 

Besides talking about where cellulosic fibers can originate on a plant, we also talked about their general properties. Natural cellulosic fibers wrinkle easily, are denser than protein fibers, absorb moisture readily (which means they're comfortable in hot weather and conduct electricity well, so less static cling, but can also be susceptible to mildew), have poor elasticity so high-stress area tend to stretch out (think knees and butts), have decent UV resistance, and burn quickly. They are moth-resistant but can attract silverfish, especially when heavily starched. 

We also discussed the process of making linen from flax -- it's pretty intense! Even today, there's no decent "quick" substitute for retting, which means linen will probably stay a luxury fiber. 

If you're interested in following along with me in my studies, these websites do a decent job of teaching the same information that I've been learning about cellulosic fibers. What say you, am I a nerd or am I a nerd? Would you ever want to learn about the chemistry of fibers? I'm already brainstorming about how I can add in a unit of fiber science for my chem class after the AP exam is over...