The first step in producing cloth and textile products is transforming fiber material such as wool, flax or cotton into thread and yarn. The original Cotton and Flax are harvested and separated by farmers. Wool is shorn from sheep by their keepers. Thread and yarn are used somewhat interchangeably in historical literature even though today we think of yarn as bigger and fluffy while thread as thin and tightly wound. This process is primarily done by women trained as "spinners". They clean the fibers, stretch and pull them in a manner similar to taffy and then use either a spinning wheel or spindle and distaff to stretch and twist them into a single long strong string of fiber useful in cloth craft. Once you have yarn / thread, there are two options you can choose for the production of your cloth products. They are, knitting and weaving. Knitting -Knitting consists of loops called stitches pulled through each other. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can be passed through them. Different yarns and knitting needles may be used to achieve different end products by giving the final piece a different colour, texture, weight, or integrity. Using needles of varying sharpness and thickness as well as different varieties of yarn adds to the effect. Weaving -Weaving is the only manner of producing real cloth. Unlike knitting where yarn is worked directly into a garment, Weaving first makes a sheet of cloth which is later cut up and tailored by sewing into garments. Sheets of cloth use little raw material but require a large investment of time. Cloth sheets are usually woven on large, complicated and expensive looms. Tailored outfits of this kind are of the highest quality, and even bolts of woven cloth are quite valuable.

At this point I'd like to clarify some of the calculations I have based this model upon. I will start with growing cotton. In modern times, ½ a bale is the average yearly yield for an acre of cotton crop. This is with wonderful modern fertilizer and pesticides. I'm assuming most medieval crop yields are about half. A bale comes out to be about 60 cubic feet of cotton, weighting about 500 lbs. Because each of our medieval acres is producing ¼ a bale, this is 15 Units (a unit is a cubic ft in our system). Because crops in our system produce their yearly wield over the course of the summer and fall months, that 15 units per acre is divided among the 6 harvest month, which I have rounded to 2.5 units per acre per month.

As far as how much clothing per unit can be produced, here are my numbers. Modern textile mills report being able to produce 1200 modern dress shirts per bale of cotton. We know that there are 60 units of cotton per bale, thus 1 unit could produce 20 modern dress shirts in a modern textile mill. Like most other places, I am assuming medieval production is only half as efficient, and is thus able to produce 10 men's shirts of the highest loom made fabric, and fewer with methods that produce a more "full bodied fabric" such as knitting.

Like most crafts, the most important element is the people who perform them. Fabric and textile production is a rather expansive field which we will handle in as simple a way as possible. Spinners make thread and yarn, Knitters make garments and other textile products directly from yarn. Weavers make cloth from yarn and thread. Tailors cut and sew cloth into high end garments.

Spinners are the foundation block of the textile trade. Their prime role is the production of yarn and thread from flax, cotton and wool.. The quantity of work a spinner can perform is a function of their rank and the tools available to them. Spinners require either a Spinning Wheel or a Spindle & Distaff to do any work at all.

Knitters produce fabric products directly from yarn by knitting them knot by knot with special needles. Most garments of average quality are knit in this manner. Knitting is the quantity over quality approach used to cloth most commoners in the medieval setting. How much work a knitter can do is a function solely of their rank. This is represented in TKUs or Textile Knitting Units. A chart detailing TKUs generated will be provided below. Knitters need specially crafted Knitting Needles to do their work.

Weavers are people, usually women, who turn thread and yarn into cloth. Somewhat complicated looms are necessary for this work. The cloth that is generally produced is much finer than those produced by crochet or knitting. Finished cloth has great versatility when worked by a tailor, and is quite valuable and sought after on the market. How much a weaver can produce is a function of their rank. It is expressed in TWUs, or Textile Weaving Units. A chart detailing TWUs generated will be provided below. How many weavers you can have working is limited to how many Looms you have. You need at least 1 loom for ever two people working as weavers.

Tailors are professionals that produce items such as garments from cloth. They have no expertise at all in producing cloth itself, but can cut it apart into patterns and sew it back together into the highest quality of garments and other cloth goods. How much your tailors produce is represented by TTUs or Textile Tailoring Units. TTUs are determined by the ranks of your tailors, and a chart detailing TTUs generated will be provided below. For a Tailor to work, she requires three pieces of equipment. First is a pair of Scissors, second a Work Table and third are Sewing Needles. Sewing Needles are used up (broken) during tailoring and will need to be provided / replaced frequently. One Sewing Needle will be used up for every 100 TTUs your tailors use making sewn products.

Spindle and Distaff- A spindle is a wooden spike simialr to a child's top which is weighted at one end with a wheel and an optional hook at the other end. It is used for spinning woll and other fibers into yarn and thread. Spindles or parts of them have been found in very, very old archaelogical sites; they may represent one of the earliest pieces of technology available to humankind. For any Spinner to do her work, she must have either a Spindle & Distaff or a Spinning Wheel. A Spindle & Distaff are simple tools and never wear out.

Spinning Wheel- A spinning wheel is a wooden bench like contraption with a single large wooden wheel. Rather than relying on finger-twisting or gravity, the spinning wheel is turned by hand or by a treadle (a foot pedal). Spinning wheels greatley assist spinners in making yarn from fibers. Each spinner you have working must have either a Spindle & Distaff or a Spinning Wheel. Spinning wheels are rather complicated and expensive. They are however generally well built and will only break beyond repair if abused or neglected, such as being left out in the elements frequentley.

Loom- A loom is a wooden frame device similar in size and appearance to an upright bed frame. It has a complicated system of brackets, clamps and adjustable thread guides that allows weavers to weave plentiful enough strands of yarn into large useful sheets of cloth. Up to two weavers may effectively work on a single loom, and as such you must have at least one loom for every two weavers working. Like Spinning wheels, Looms are rather complicated and expensive. They are however generally well built and will only break beyond repair if abused or neglected, such as being left out in the elements frequentley.

Knitting Needles- Knitting Needles are used as a tool in the manufacture of hand knitted fabrics. The needle is used to reach through a knitting stitch in order to snag a bight of yarn and pull a length back through the stitch to form a new loop at the top of the current wale of stitches. They re used in pairs and are generally easy to manufacture. They are however necessary to perform knitting. As a rule they do not wear out.

Sewing Needles- Sewing needles are small metal needles with an eye at the back end through which thread is run. Because they are metal and require very skilled crafting, they are expensive by medieval standards. Tailors require them to do their work, and are known to go through many of them as they break often.

Scissors- Metal tools used for cutting thin material which requires little force. They're ideal for cutting paper, cloth, and rope. They are also used for cutting hair and nails. Unlike a knife, scissors have two pivoted (or hinged) blades. Most types of scissors are not particularly sharp; it is primarily the shearing between the two blades which cuts. Sissors are generally well made and durable. They do not generally wear out.

Knitters and Spinners using a spindle need no special facilities at all. Most do their work in their homes. Spinners using a spinning wheel, Tailors and Weavers working a loom do require a building. The building may be of any sort (except wicker). Each spinning wheel requires 50 ft of floor space. Each loom requires 100 ft of floor space. Each Tailor requires 50 ft of floor space for their table.

* Weaving & Tailoring implies that the yarn is being spun and cloth is being made locally as part of the civilization's textile craft pool.

** Tailoring is used if your not bothering to grow, harvest, spin and weave textiles, and simply tailoring items from purchased cloth.

Note that information on sails can be found in the boats and ships section. Leather clothing like boots, shoes, sandals gloves, hats, belts and such will be found in the leather craft section.