Baft

A fabric woven from varying sizes of thread with interlaced or brocaded precious metals. These fabrics are made up of a series of smaller weaves. Produced by twisting warp threads between each weave with tablets of varying materials. These tablets began as percaline or earthen pieces with holes located around the tablet through which the threads are placed. Early examples of this fabric utilized large flaxen threads and similarly large tablets. With the advent of paper however, the tablets changed to thick stacked paper. The paper cards were much thinner than the previous tablets even with the stacking required for strength. The use of paper cards aloud for thinner threads to be used in series to achieve a fabric of similar size but much finer weave and pattern detail. The rich veins of ore found within the Hook inspired its use within the fabrics to provide depth and a gleam to the weaves. This new style of fabric became extraordinarily common throughout the region.
The overall width of the fabric remained thin as it was easier to produce within a household this way and eventually became the preferred style. Clothes and other larger or more complex textiles made within the Hook are often stitched with these thinner strips side by side to create the larger pieces. Thin threads are used for small clothes and other delicate cloth while larger woolen threads are used for coats and the like. Clothes made for commoners may include coppers and similar lesser metals. These metals can either be left to tarnish and patina, changing their color with age, or be cleaned and kept pristine for use in ceremonies or during special occasions. Often times the type worn for special circumstance is also made with more of the metals used throughout.
While the price of gold and other precious metals may be quite high for commoners such little is used within some of the less expensive examples that, without export taxation and taxation on sale, many of those who work with the material normally have used it within their own wardrobe. For those within cities such as Fallesforge, Zannie's Ford, and Frotenyæger where the material used within the fabric has only just been worked into usable thread the aggregate tax, and thus overall cost, can be low enough to constitute daily wear. The type of weave used in this sort of daily wear is quite subtle however and does not nearly come to level of prestige that the Baft known by outsiders does. Regardless of the amount of metals used within the Baft fabric it is still known within the Hook by that name.

Type

Textile