Hey, you used my suggestion! Yay! A very charming word that's used by knitters online is "tink" and "tinking", to describe unraveling knitted fabric - like you're reversing your knitting, ergo tinking. As in "I made a mistake and had to tink ten rows!" The equivalent term in crochet is "frogging" but that isn't as cute. 🐸
My favorite sewing-related word is zig zag, a type of stitch. The word zigzag comes from the French word ziczac, which comes from the German word zickzack. Zickzack comes from the German word Zacke, which means "point" or "jagged projection"
The bias is usually referred to in the phrase "on the bias" meaning that whatever action you are doing to the garment, (cutting, stiching, etc) you are doing at a 45 degree angle to the direction the threads go instead of along the thread grain. This leads to more stretch and generally a better fit and adaptability to curves in the garment.
This is something I would normally never be interested in, but the title absolutely nailed making me curious and even excited to see what it meant. I haven’t felt that way about a video, or any piece of media really in quit a while. I love this!
For 'yarn' as story and spun fiber, when women would hand spin yarn, they would do it in groups and tell each other storys (and gossip) so its understandable how the meanings would merge.
I may be wrong (in which case, please let me know), but I think "tailor" comes from the French "tailleur", meaning "one who makes garments to measure" - a relatively late development in the history of sewing, "Tailleur", in turn, comes from "taille" -the French for "waist" - a key measurement in making a fitted garment.
Tailler does mean "to cut" in french. The art of the tailleur was (still is) to create a pattern and to cut the fabric to make a fitted garment, in opposition to a lingère, a seamstress or more recently a mantua maker, who worked with rectangular pieces and pleated or gathered them to fit or added triangular gussets to give it volume, and usually used the whole fabric with very little waste.
Bias.. think of grid paper. Normally, fabric squares are cut on the lines. A bias cut is cutting diagonally , at a 45° angle. Fabric will stretch more when cut that way. :-)
I believe the clue goes back to sewing as well. If memory serves , a clue was originally a tangle of thread or yarn, so it's easy to see where that came to mean a clue like a detective might pick up.
Great video - thanks. I might suggest that “bias” as to an opinion with a bias to one side is likely more related to bias as a slant in the fabric - thread that is neither warp nor weft (other words worth explaining). Thanks again
At 6:47 Yarn.... It was called yarn, because it was long and thin and made out of intestines! There is a reason why The string on a violin bow is called "cat gut".... Later on they did switch over to horse tails for violin bows.
You are thinking of the correct materials, but in the wrong place. The strings on a bow have not been made of gut---they have been made of horsehair. The strings on the ~violin~ traditionally were made out of gut. Gut strings became less common in the early 20th century, and most violinists today play on steel strings. The combination of the slightly scratchy horsehair (aided by rosin) rubbing against the comparatively smooth gut or steel is what produces the vibrations that make sound.
@@PurelyCoincidental Also the 'cat' part is from 'kat' which is related to 'kine' (cattle). Gut strings are historically made from sheep gut (I know modern usage of cattle does not include sheep).
"Bias" is typically an adjective that describes either a peice of fabric or a seam that is done or cut on an angle, typically 45 degrees or across a 90 degree angle. This essentially changes the grain line of the fabric in relation to the edge (normal fabric is on the "straight grain", which just means that the threads are running parallel and perpendicular to the edge) Bias "things" include bias tape (a band of fabric cut in the bias, where the grain of the fabric is at an angle) A bias seam (a seam done with two peices of fabric that are cur on the bias) and a bias dress (a dress where the side seams are bias seams). Fabric cut on the straight grain and on the bias come together in dynamic ways to create a garment, especially in traditional tailoring, which, especially in the past, focused on creating men's clothing, like suits and jackets. The gendered terms "tailor" and "seamstress" as I have been told, seem to be more associated with people who make mens clothing (tailor) and people who make women's clothing (seamstress) although the boundaries are blurry and complicated. I once heard that a man who makes clothing was always called a tailor, whereas a woman could be called both.
What I like about the relationship between the textile meaning of bias and the metaphorical use is that both terms involve being at an angle other than the true or straight grain and both imply a sense of stretching material to fit the intended shape or purpose. Also, those who do a lot of hand-stitching wear their thimbles on either the middle or ring finger--not the thumb. It allows more dexterity and efficiency.
"Basting" means applying a temporary seam, rather than a pin or a clip, to hold pieces together until you get the permanent one in. I find this to be a handy metaphor in all kinds of other areas. No idea if it's related to basting a turkey.
Some of the earliest things used to stitch clothing were tanned guts and sinews. Basically, if someone killed an animal and tanned the skin to make leather, they would also wind up with a bunch of guts and sinew as well. Instead of throwing them out, they could be used with a needle to stitch the pieces of hide into crude clothing.
I have a couple of sewing-related contributions at my presence at 'Fonts In Use' - 'Of Course You Can Sew!', by Barbara Corrigan and the 'Sewing It In Style' article by Glynis Holland in 'The Sun -Annual for Girls 1973' - so I have an interest in this subject and thanks, Patrick, for making this one of your better offerings, in my opinion, with some genuinely interesting histories of the vocabulary associated with the craft. I do like, also, the way in which the sounds 'S' and 'H' are associated with each other, linguistically speaking, so I particularly enjoyed the linking of the terms 'seam' and 'hem', which I have, strange to report, never mutually associated independent of this video.
You skipped over yarn’s slender cousin thread! Bias is also used in electronics to indicate the resting voltage or (less frequently) current applied to a device when no signal is being processed, as: “Transistor Q32 has a base bias of 5 volts.” This usage may be based more on the opinion usage rather than the sewing usage.
Oh, you are going to love this one. In Swedish, a thimble is called "fingerborg". Finger means what you think it does. Borg means castle, specifically a castle primarily meant as a military fortification. (Which fans of this channel may already know, from the -borg or -burg suffix of many cities in the Germanic world.) So, a tiny castle to defend your fingertip. Isn't that delightful?
"Rhapsody" has its roots in sewing, as in weaving a tale. I call myself a "seamster". I can make heating pads with feed corn, and have done a quilt or two. But just as "flower" in crossword clues could mean either a bloom or a brook, "sewer" also has two pronunciations. To avoid embarrassment, some have come up with "sewist", which I think is a travesty. "Rhapsodist" has a very nice sound, though.
I'm a sewer and will be until I die. To me "Sewist" sounds very twee and artsy-fartsy, like they only use violence-free silk and ethically sourced organic linen and shame everyone else for using what is available where they live and in their budget.
Today, many people who sew instead of referring to themselves as "Sewers" (which visually might be confused with municipal waste disposal conduits) refer to themselves as "Sewists." It's taking me some time to get used to it.
Crocheters in the UK and the USA use the same terms to mean different things. What the UK calls "Double Crochet" the USA calls "Single Crochet", While a UK "Treble Crochet" is called "Double Crochet" in the USA. This can be very confusing for beginners especially if you’re in a country (such as my own, Australia) where both sets of terminology are used.
I would have liked to learn how text and textile are related, because both words also exist in french with the exact same meaning. The relationship between them should be old or got passed between languages.
Tapestry is NOT a form of embroidery. It is a form of weaving. There is no “sewing” involved in a proper tapestry. The Bayeux Tapestry is ironically not in fact a tapestry, rather it is an enormous work of embroidery.
Tapestry more often refers to a type of weaving but it can be used for large works of embroidery as the same word was used by the French for both needlepoint, sometimes still referred to as tapestry, and for woven tapestry. The broad definition was a textile covered with intricate designs used to cover walls, chairs, etc. It often gets applied to needlepoint but not other types of embroidery because needlepoint doesn’t embellish another piece of fabric but instead creates a new one. That’s why the two types of work, woven tapestry and needlepoint, often get used for similar things.
What's your favourite sewing related word?
Fabric sounds so beautiful.
Hey, you used my suggestion! Yay!
A very charming word that's used by knitters online is "tink" and "tinking", to describe unraveling knitted fabric - like you're reversing your knitting, ergo tinking. As in "I made a mistake and had to tink ten rows!"
The equivalent term in crochet is "frogging" but that isn't as cute. 🐸
My favorite sewing-related word is zig zag, a type of stitch. The word zigzag comes from the French word ziczac, which comes from the German word zickzack. Zickzack comes from the German word Zacke, which means "point" or "jagged projection"
Bobbin
Denim, the material jeans are made of originated in Nimes France. Serge de Nimes
The bias is usually referred to in the phrase "on the bias" meaning that whatever action you are doing to the garment, (cutting, stiching, etc) you are doing at a 45 degree angle to the direction the threads go instead of along the thread grain. This leads to more stretch and generally a better fit and adaptability to curves in the garment.
And to understqnd the stretch, I think if a scissor lift.
This is something I would normally never be interested in, but the title absolutely nailed making me curious and even excited to see what it meant. I haven’t felt that way about a video, or any piece of media really in quit a while. I love this!
A fisherman has tackle. A seamstress has notions.
For 'yarn' as story and spun fiber, when women would hand spin yarn, they would do it in groups and tell each other storys (and gossip) so its understandable how the meanings would merge.
In the USA, haberdashery means a store that sells men's clothing and accessories, although I don't know how that came to be.
I wonder if it has anything to do with "dashing" as an adjective for a sharply dressed man...
I may be wrong (in which case, please let me know), but I think "tailor" comes from the French "tailleur", meaning "one who makes garments to measure" - a relatively late development in the history of sewing, "Tailleur", in turn, comes from "taille" -the French for "waist" - a key measurement in making a fitted garment.
I've heard that too
Tailler does mean "to cut" in french. The art of the tailleur was (still is) to create a pattern and to cut the fabric to make a fitted garment, in opposition to a lingère, a seamstress or more recently a mantua maker, who worked with rectangular pieces and pleated or gathered them to fit or added triangular gussets to give it volume, and usually used the whole fabric with very little waste.
@@NouriaDiallo Thank you! That makes sense!
Bias.. think of grid paper. Normally, fabric squares are cut on the lines. A bias cut is cutting diagonally , at a 45° angle. Fabric will stretch more when cut that way. :-)
I believe the clue goes back to sewing as well. If memory serves , a clue was originally a tangle of thread or yarn, so it's easy to see where that came to mean a clue like a detective might pick up.
It was a spool of thread that Theseus used to find his way out of the labyrinth.
Great video - thanks. I might suggest that “bias” as to an opinion with a bias to one side is likely more related to bias as a slant in the fabric - thread that is neither warp nor weft (other
words worth explaining). Thanks again
In the US, during the late 1800s, haberdasher was someone that sold men's wear....if you needed a new shirt, you went to the haberdasher.
Another great video! I really really love when you take it back to Proto Indo European… That language evolution really sends me.
At 6:47
Yarn....
It was called yarn, because it was long and thin and made out of intestines! There is a reason why The string on a violin bow is called "cat gut"....
Later on they did switch over to horse tails for violin bows.
You are thinking of the correct materials, but in the wrong place.
The strings on a bow have not been made of gut---they have been made of horsehair. The strings on the ~violin~ traditionally were made out of gut. Gut strings became less common in the early 20th century, and most violinists today play on steel strings.
The combination of the slightly scratchy horsehair (aided by rosin) rubbing against the comparatively smooth gut or steel is what produces the vibrations that make sound.
@PurelyCoincidental
That's what I get for having insomnia for 48 hours....I put things in the wrong place.
@@PurelyCoincidental Also the 'cat' part is from 'kat' which is related to 'kine' (cattle). Gut strings are historically made from sheep gut (I know modern usage of cattle does not include sheep).
"Bias" is typically an adjective that describes either a peice of fabric or a seam that is done or cut on an angle, typically 45 degrees or across a 90 degree angle. This essentially changes the grain line of the fabric in relation to the edge (normal fabric is on the "straight grain", which just means that the threads are running parallel and perpendicular to the edge) Bias "things" include bias tape (a band of fabric cut in the bias, where the grain of the fabric is at an angle) A bias seam (a seam done with two peices of fabric that are cur on the bias) and a bias dress (a dress where the side seams are bias seams). Fabric cut on the straight grain and on the bias come together in dynamic ways to create a garment, especially in traditional tailoring, which, especially in the past, focused on creating men's clothing, like suits and jackets.
The gendered terms "tailor" and "seamstress" as I have been told, seem to be more associated with people who make mens clothing (tailor) and people who make women's clothing (seamstress) although the boundaries are blurry and complicated. I once heard that a man who makes clothing was always called a tailor, whereas a woman could be called both.
What I like about the relationship between the textile meaning of bias and the metaphorical use is that both terms involve being at an angle other than the true or straight grain and both imply a sense of stretching material to fit the intended shape or purpose.
Also, those who do a lot of hand-stitching wear their thimbles on either the middle or ring finger--not the thumb. It allows more dexterity and efficiency.
"Basting" means applying a temporary seam, rather than a pin or a clip, to hold pieces together until you get the permanent one in. I find this to be a handy metaphor in all kinds of other areas.
No idea if it's related to basting a turkey.
New name explain video just dropped
Some of the earliest things used to stitch clothing were tanned guts and sinews. Basically, if someone killed an animal and tanned the skin to make leather, they would also wind up with a bunch of guts and sinew as well. Instead of throwing them out, they could be used with a needle to stitch the pieces of hide into crude clothing.
I have a couple of sewing-related contributions at my presence at 'Fonts In Use' - 'Of Course You Can Sew!', by Barbara Corrigan and the 'Sewing It In Style' article by Glynis Holland in 'The Sun -Annual for Girls 1973' - so I have an interest in this subject and thanks, Patrick, for making this one of your better offerings, in my opinion, with some genuinely interesting histories of the vocabulary associated with the craft. I do like, also, the way in which the sounds 'S' and 'H' are associated with each other, linguistically speaking, so I particularly enjoyed the linking of the terms 'seam' and 'hem', which I have, strange to report, never mutually associated independent of this video.
Sewing terms with Name Explain? I'm gonna enjoy this with a cup of coffee ☺️
Do the cute sewing word bobbin!
I always assumed 'thimble' evolved from "thumb bell", since it's a vaguely bell-shaped object worn on the thumb.
You skipped over yarn’s slender cousin thread!
Bias is also used in electronics to indicate the resting voltage or (less frequently) current applied to a device when no signal is being processed, as:
“Transistor Q32 has a base bias of 5 volts.” This usage may be based more on the opinion usage rather than the sewing usage.
Thanks algorhythm, I'm sewing right now!
Oh, you are going to love this one.
In Swedish, a thimble is called "fingerborg".
Finger means what you think it does. Borg means castle, specifically a castle primarily meant as a military fortification. (Which fans of this channel may already know, from the -borg or -burg suffix of many cities in the Germanic world.)
So, a tiny castle to defend your fingertip. Isn't that delightful?
3:27 Fun fact, the Bayeux tapestry is actually an embroidery not a tapestry (and was probably made in England not Bayeux)
0/2
"Rhapsody" has its roots in sewing, as in weaving a tale.
I call myself a "seamster". I can make heating pads with feed corn, and have done a quilt or two. But just as "flower" in crossword clues could mean either a bloom or a brook, "sewer" also has two pronunciations. To avoid embarrassment, some have come up with "sewist", which I think is a travesty.
"Rhapsodist" has a very nice sound, though.
I'm a sewer and will be until I die.
To me "Sewist" sounds very twee and artsy-fartsy, like they only use violence-free silk and ethically sourced organic linen and shame everyone else for using what is available where they live and in their budget.
Sewing!
I have a list of words for which I will dismiss their users. "Adorable" is on that list. 🙂
Today, many people who sew instead of referring to themselves as "Sewers" (which visually might be confused with municipal waste disposal conduits) refer to themselves as "Sewists."
It's taking me some time to get used to it.
Crocheters in the UK and the USA use the same terms to mean different things. What the UK calls "Double Crochet" the USA calls "Single Crochet", While a UK "Treble Crochet" is called "Double Crochet" in the USA.
This can be very confusing for beginners especially if you’re in a country (such as my own, Australia) where both sets of terminology are used.
I would have liked to learn how text and textile are related, because both words also exist in french with the exact same meaning. The relationship between them should be old or got passed between languages.
You thread needles by folding over the thread and pushing the loop edge through instead of the tip~
Does that mean tailor and tagliatelle are distant cousins?
Or, thimble comes from thumb-bell. Doesn't it look like one?
The tittle got me bad tho'.
12 minutes ago 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Tapestry is NOT a form of embroidery. It is a form of weaving. There is no “sewing” involved in a proper tapestry.
The Bayeux Tapestry is ironically not in fact a tapestry, rather it is an enormous work of embroidery.
Tapestry more often refers to a type of weaving but it can be used for large works of embroidery as the same word was used by the French for both needlepoint, sometimes still referred to as tapestry, and for woven tapestry. The broad definition was a textile covered with intricate designs used to cover walls, chairs, etc. It often gets applied to needlepoint but not other types of embroidery because needlepoint doesn’t embellish another piece of fabric but instead creates a new one. That’s why the two types of work, woven tapestry and needlepoint, often get used for similar things.