Editing Weaving (section)

===Colonial United States===
[[Colonial America]] relied heavily on [[Great Britain]] for manufactured goods of all kinds. British policy was to encourage the production of raw materials in colonies and discourage manufacturing. The [[Wool Act 1699]] restricted the export of colonial wool.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=46972 |title=An Act for continuing severall Laws therein mentioned, and for explaining the Act intituled An Act to prevent the Exportation of Wooll out of the Kingdoms of Ireland and England into Forreigne Parts and for the Incouragement of the Woollen Manufactures in the Kingdom of England |work=Statutes of the Realm, 1695–1701, vol. 7 |date=1820 |pages=600–02 |access-date=16 February 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Garraty, John A. |author2=Carnes, Mark C. |title=A Short History of the American Nation |edition=8th |year=2000 |publisher=Longman |isbn=0-321-07098-4 |chapter=Chapter Three: America in the British Empire |chapter-url=http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/uhs/WebSite/Courses/APUSH/1st%20Sem/Garraty%20Short%20History%20Chapters%201-18/chapter_threei.htm |access-date=2013-10-27 |archive-date=2008-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517130635/http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/uhs/WebSite/Courses/APUSH/1st%20Sem/Garraty%20Short%20History%20Chapters%201-18/chapter_threei.htm  }}</ref>
As a result, many people wove cloth from locally produced fibres. The colonists also used wool, [[cotton]] and [[flax]] (linen) for weaving, though [[hemp]] could be made into serviceable canvas and heavy cloth. They could get one cotton crop each year; until the invention of the [[cotton gin]] it was a labour-intensive process to separate the seeds from the fibres. Functional tape, bands, straps, and fringe were woven on box and paddle looms.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Faulkner Weaver |first=Susan |title=Handwoven Tape: Understanding and Weaving Early American and Contemporary Tape |year=2016}}</ref> <!--It generally took an entire year to produce cloth from raw materials, including processing, spinning, weaving and finishing. Flax and hemp were harvested in the summer, and the stalks [[Flax#Preparation for spinning|retted]] to obtain the long fibers within. Sheep could be [[sheep shearing|sheared]] of wool up to twice yearly, depending on their breed. The relative ease of processing wool and its durability, meant that a great proportion of weaving was wool cloth. {{citation needed|date=October 2011}}-->

A plain weave was preferred as the added skill and time required to make more complex weaves kept them from common use. Sometimes designs were woven into the fabric but most were added after weaving using wood block prints or embroidery. <!--Later, the use of multi-harness looms enabled color or texture patterns to be directly woven into the fabric.{{citation needed|date=October 2011}}-->