$8.96
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If you buy new packaged burlap, the first thing you'll notice is its strong smell. It is a 100% natural material made from jute, and it's odor is the normal jute smell, not from some industrial coating. If you're using it for fiber art you will need to "de-smell" it. By far the easiest way to get rid of it is just to let it air out for a week; the smell will dissipate entirely. If you want to get rid of it faster spread it out and sprinkle a very small amount of baking soda on it. Burlap is sometimes used by painters as an inexpensive alternative to cotton or linen as a stretched painting or working surface. Another arts use for it is as reinforcement for plaster molds. It's a great material available for use by starving artists as the least expensive reinforcement available. It flexes easily and follows varying forms easily. The lightweight kind we have is especially good for use as reinforcement and building up the mold quicker. And it's also user friendly, lacking those itchy fibers from fiberglass that get all over the place. You can get it in a loose weave or various tighter fabrics.
Burlap (or "hessian") refers to the loose plain weave fabric that has been used for millennium. Burlap was used for inexpensive shipping bags and as lining or backing material for carpet and upholstery. It can be made of other materials like sisal or hemp, but jute is by far the most common because it is the least expensive of all natural fibers made. The shipping of agricultural products often involves bags made from jute fabric. Burlap bags (also known as gunnysacks) are used to ship tobacco, wool, and cotton, as well as food such as coffee, flour, vegetables, and grains. Jute's ability to allow the contents of bags to breathe makes it excellent for preventing or minimizing rotting due to trapped moisture. Burlap bags are sometimes used as sandbags as a temporary barrier to flooding. Because of the jute material, the bags can either be reused or can be composted after use.
Jute has been used by man since prehistoric times. Jute is not a strong fiber. When wet a thin twine can be broken by hand. It is biodegradable, degrading with time, sunlight, water, acids, alkalis, and bleach. Jute is used to make sackcloth, burlap cloth, gunnysacks, twine, paper, and carpet backing. It was also used to make brown paper in Europe in the mid-19th century (that from the Cameo art materials database).
The first mill to mass produce burlap and other jute products was established near Calcutta, India in 1855. This region is still the main supplier of jute products today. The mechanical process of spinning jute fibers was first worked out in Dundee, Scotland. Dundee produced the first power-driven machines for the mill in Calcutta in 1859. According to the article on NYP Corporation’s website, “By 1869, five mills were operating with 950 looms. Growth was rapid and, by 1910, 38 companies operating 30,685 looms exported more than a billion yards of cloth and over 450 million bags.” That info from the NYP Corp a wholesaler of burlap bags. The history of sandbags goes back around 250 years to the Napoleonic Wars used by French soldiers for fortification.
The subject of jute from which burlap is almost always made is interesting. Jute is a bast fiber. Bast or phloem fibers, form the inner bark or skin, surrounding the stem of certain plants, which support conductive cells and give strength to the stem. Examples of bast fibers are flax, hemp, kudzu, linden, and jute. Jute fibers before being spun into yarn are about 3 to 13 feet long. A significant part of bast fibers is the special structure called the "fiber node" that is a weak point in the fiber, which gives it flexibility. Fibers from non-bast, seed fibers (like cotton) do not have nodes. Jute is an ancient material, used for many things. The jute plant itself was used as a food in ancient Egypt. Jute fibers were made into textiles in the Indus Valley 3,000 years B.C. More jute is produced in the world than any other fiber except cotton.
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May 3, 2023
Perfect! Exactly what I need
Phillip
Dec 28, 2022
Nice quality burlap. Using it today to make a hypertufa pot.
Debra Mauzy-Melitz