Baby, it's cold outside (19ºF/-7ºC in Spokane at this moment ), time for a cozy fabric like bouclé, with its small loops that insulate, as well as decorate. Characterized by loops on one or both sides, bouclé comes from the French word for “buckled,” “ringed” or “curled.” Some versions of the fabric combine looped sections with plain; others are looped all over. Most commonly wool—with mohair a fine choice for this treatment—bouclé may also be acrylic or other fibers. It may be woven or knitted. Uses: Coats, suits, sweaters See also: Bouclette Poodle cloth Ratiné Terry cloth Woven wool and mohair bouclé from a 1960s suit Wool knit bouclé from a 1950s skirt suit Woven wool bouclé with plain yarns intermixed Bouclette is the diminutive of bouclé (French for “buckled,” “ringed,” or “curled”) and features very small loops over the surface of the fabric. As with bouclé, it is usually made of wool, and its uses are similar. I haven't seen the name bouclette applied to a knit. This is a woven wool bouclette This is a 1960s wool bouclé set I have in my shop. The coat has thicker and bigger loops than the dress, but I'd still call them both bouclé. Knit bouclé was used a lot for sweater suits from the late 1940s into the 1960s. Certain companies seemed to specialize in these suits. (Kimberly, Snyderknit and Brittany Club are some I remember at this moment.) Here's one of those sweater suits What's really great about the bouclé texture is that you can mend it invisibly without too much effort. Plus, they are comfortable, being knit. Any questions, doubts or thoughts?
I have always thought that this is the only way bouclé could look. Didn’t realize or associate the other plain wool knits as bouclé at all. Aren’t a lot of knits “loopy” in a way? Are there specific style/ shape loops that make it a bouclé? I am especially struggling to see it with your last example.
As a knitter, I may be able to help with this. All knits are made of interlocking loops, but with bouclé, the yarn itself is loopy - so it has loops before it's knit, which then become part of the fabric. Here's some boucle yarn - hopefully you can see the little loops. Here's the same yarn, knit up into fabric. In this case, the loops are so dense, you can't even see the knitted stitches. (my pics, over on ravelry) I think Maggie's lovely cream sweater, has fewer and smaller loops, so the effect is more subtle, and you'd need a close up of the fabric to see it. And on the red knit, the loops are quite infrequent, so you see the knitted stitches, and just occasionally a loop.
So I suppose, bouclé isn't really a type of weave or knit - it's actually a characteristic of the yarn itself, creating at the spinning stage. This refers to hand spinning, but of course it will be machine spun too: https://www.ashford.co.nz/blog/how-to-spin-a-boucle-yarn
Thanks Ruth! That makes sense. That’s probably why I always associated bouclé with the fuzzy kind where the red one above looked like a regular knit.
Wow, those are great illustrations of bouclé yarn Ruth, thank you! The 50s bouclé knit sweater suits are really quite subtle by comparison. I really should add a more loopy bouclé knit to the Fabric Resource.
I also had to look closely at the red example, to be able to say, yes that is a boucle - it has occasional large curls. It's a vintage yarn as it happens - 1970s. You are welcome to any of my photos if they are appropriate. Here's another, same vintage 1970s yarn, different colourway. There was a quite a trend for boucle hand knitting in the 1970s.
