Technical Museum of Slovenia Collections
Craft
As regards tradition and the numbers it has employed down through the ages, textile manufacture has been one of this country’s most important areas of economic endeavour since ancient times.
Visitors are introduced to a history of spinning, weaving, knitting, hat and straw-hat making, tailoring and ropery.
The craft of knitting, which was once commonplace across these territories, is to a great extent still preserved to this day. Visitors are introduced to the history of knitting techniques, whereas the exhibits serve as an illustration of a craftsman’s workroom.
Fulling – the process of cleansing and felting the cloth – is an age-old craft. It was known by the ancient Egiptians, as well as by Greeks and Romans who fulled the cloth with their feet
From the Middle Ages, there is evidence for cloth-making in Piran (1284), Ljubljana (1329), Maribor (1367), Kamnik (1428) and Škofja Loka (1560). Another record mentions people from Rezija, selling cloth around Friuli in 1577.
In Carniola, particularly in Upper Carniola, the first wool manufactories appeared as early as in the eighteenth century. One of the oldest cloth mills in Austria of that day was the one in Selo near Ljubljana, established in 1724.
The rise of the local cloth-making was made possible by the well-established tradition of sheep breeding. Cloth mills were usually built near streams and rivers; Some of the fullers went on to dye the cloth with natural, vegetal colours.
The craft began to go to ruin at the end of the nineteenth century, due to the strong competition of the cheaper, industrially produced cloth; in the middle of the twentieth century, it died out entirely.
The Fulling Mill at Libia
The water-driven stamp mill and mangle, exposed here, were acquired in 1961 from Lepa Njiva near Mozirje. The approximate age of these devices is indicated by year 1818 etched into the mangle’s spindle. The farm was called ‘Vavhar’ or ‘Firbar’. Its last owner, Ivan Keber, was still active in the fifties of the twentieth century. The income from fulling was not enough for the family to survive; it was merely a supplement to farming. His customers were bringing him cloth, sackcloth and the like from vicinity, as well as from faraway settlements. In return, they received a number; on the day of Saint Acacius fair, on June 22, Ivan Keber brought the fulled and felted cloth to Šoštanj and delivered it to his customers.
The final room in this section provides an insight into the development of tailoring in Slovenia. The introduction of sewing machines came quite to these lands; however, their advent revolutionized the domestic craft which grew rapidly to become the industrial scale production of ready-to-wear clothes.
The reconstruction of a mid-20th century hatter’s workshop displays the manufacturing procedures used as well as the evolution of hat – and straw-hat – making in our country.
Spinning and weaving are two of the oldest craft activities. Until the second half of the 19th century, clothes and underwear on the Slovenian territory were made exclusively of linen and cloth woven from linen, hemp, and woolen yarn. Hand spinning with distaff and spindle was preserved the longest in the Bela Krajina region of Slovenia. Spinning wheels were not widespread in Slovenia until the 19th century. The warping board and the warping frame were used for the preparation of basic threads for weaving. A weaving board was in use for the weaving of ribbons and belts in Bela Krajina until the 1930s. On a facsimile of the original wooden upright looms for weaving aprons and bags, visitors can try their hand at weaving. The typical Bela Krajina looms are also exhibited, on which patterns were woven with a special weaving technique using willow branches. Various informative short films introduce visitors to tasks related to flax growing, wool production and fabrication.
