Anatomy of a Burel cape

The topic of the Burel cape came about during the weaving workshop, while Fernando went through his textile sample book that contains some of the traditional portuguese weaving typologies.
It's interesting to look at a piece, that is so traditional in Portugal, from a technical point of view, which is so often overlooked. What we make isn't always the result of what we intended to make, but of the technical means we had to attain something, or as I heard the other day: good design thrives in adversity.

In the workshop, we talked about burel from a weaver's point of view, of how it needs to be woven as a twill so that the felting that occurs during the waulking process is effective.
But looking at the cape, we can see that this is not a regular twill woven with 4 shafts, but a 3 shafttwill. This cape tells us that although weaving a twill is imperative, 4 shaft looms were not common around and a 3 shaft loom had to do. Most domestic looms had only 2 shafts.
How the yarn was spun also influenced if the waulking went well or not. The warp threads were spun with more twist, of course, to withstand the tension, but the weft yarn waslow twist so that the loose fibres would felt more easily as well.

I got this cape thanks to Paula and Fernando. A wonderful opportunity, since I had been looking for a real one for years, for both sentimental and professional reasons.
It's an old cape, but new, as it has never been worn. It was made long ago, when there were still waulking mills working, to be sold.
The yarn was spun from black churro wool and it was handwoven by the person who sold it, from Montalegre. I'm still not sure where it was felted and of who sewed it.

One of the things that has always fascinated me but that I never had the opportunity to see closely until I got this one, was how it is cut. It looks simple and very geometric, but anyone that has tried one on will tell you that the minute you put it on, it wraps you up beautifully. 

The width of the looms was a limitation as well. It was not possible to weave fabric wide enough to cut the cape from a single piece. So this beautiful geometry in the cut is also a result of this limitation. We can see the seams on the inside, but on the outside they were pressed to be invisible.

Maria Martins, the lady that made it, says you should keep it in a thick linenbag, because moths will not eat it to get to the wool cape. It sounds pretty obvious the minute someone tells you that...