Funny how, even with an AWAD inspired understanding of cross-pond conversation, I can still get caught out.

Yesterday a vowel-state friend was helping make a children's costume. I mentioned an apron that she'd made out of the calico I'd bought a few days ago. "No", she said, "it's not calico, it's muslin". "No", I said, it is definitely calico, muslin is much thinner, you can use it in the kitchen to strain liquids. "No", that's muslin too but this is thick muslin ..." she continued. "No, this is definitely calico", I said, "I even discussed it in the shop and asked for it by name".

After a little while, we stopped saying "muslin", "calico" with occasional harrumphs (courtesy of AnnaS). When she pointed out that calico was usually patterned, I realised that this was not a simple misunderstanding but one of those Brit/US'n thangs.

Here, as far as I know, calico is plain cheap cotton, sometimes unbleached, never patterned. Muslin is only used for the thinnest cloth, ideal for putting over the shoulder when carrying babies around. You would not be able to make sheets or curtains out of muslin. It can be used for straining cheese but cheesecloth is a little rougher - I remember the cheesecloth blouses of the seventies - they never quite buttoned up again after a couple of washes.

It appears that in the USA, Calico is patterned cloth and the word muslin is used for a much wider range of fabrics. This means that all those little girls that I read about in my youth, didn't prance around in plain unbleached cotton dresses I'd always wondered why they wore them, such a lot of washing! but had cotton dresses with patterns. Similarly, I've heard mention of a calico cat but never really thought about it what it might look like, the word "colourful" would have been a long way from my thoughts.

If you look up the word in a selection of dictionaries (try onelook.com) - you'll get the different definitions.

The next question is since the name comes from Calicut and the fabric was exported by the East India company, how did two such different uses emerge?

What do people from other counties mean when they say calico?

What my mother called "muslin" was a tight-woven sturdy harsh usually unbleached material used for cheap bed sheets. Calico was a light girls' dress material, mostly white but overprinted with variously oriented flowers or similar figures in several different colors.

muslin, is a light to medium weight solid (usually)cloth.

Calico is light weight muslin with fine all over floral design (think laura ashley type prints--or little house on the praire prints.)

cambric, is similar to muslin, but the warp is always dyed a color (often blue) and the weft is left white. (as in the old Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme-"tell her to make me a cambric shirt, with out any seams or needlework")

monks cloth is coarser still.. and is, now days characterized by slight un evenness in the spun thread.. with small slubs-slightly thicker parts of thread, which give the woven fabric a homespun look.

sail cloth is coarser still, but its not as coarse as denim or canvas or canvas twill (denim is canvas twill!)

muslin tend to have a higher thread count than cambric, i wouldn't consider anything less than 160 to be muslin.. (80 thread in one direction per inch, and 80 more in the other)
cambric might only be 120 thread count.

the blouses Jo defined--(circa 1960) sheer to almost sheer-- in this country that fabric would be voile, or lawn..

broad cloth is a fine muslin, woven on a wide loom.. that used to be 36 or 45 inch wide, now it can be 108 inches (just short of 3 meters wide!) in years past, a fine gentlemans shirt made out of broadcloth, would not have a center seam down the back -- common muslin, at 20/22 wide was to narrow to make a seam free back!

fiberbabe might fill us in with more details--

There are lots of others, seersucker-- (a AWAD word--look it up)

jmh asked: "What do people from other counties mean when they say calico?"

As to cloth, my family thought it was cheap cotton with a colorful pattern, usually of flowers. This opinion was based on the "authority of Mom," who was a U.S. Georgia/Florida girl.

As to cats, it meant tri-colored; more specifically, black, orange, and white. Black, orange, and cream cats were "tortoise shells." - Male calico cats are rare; they usually have birth defects and don't survive kittenhood. I've heard rumors that male survivors are also sterile, but I don't know.

Tsyganka, with 3 cats, 2 dogs, and all the birds she can feed

Tsyganka, with 3 cats, 2 dogs, and all the birds she can feed

This is to the cats, I take it?

"...and all the birds she can feed"
--"This is to the cats, I take it?"

Only by happenstance, your esteemed Pooh-Bah-ship, sir. : ) ...Although we Have contemplated dropping a net on some of them and mixing up a nice little lemon-butter sauce.

We have our own names for the birds, too, including "blotlunches" for doves - so named because a friend has a cat named Blot who likes to eat ... yup.

Tsyganka, blotlunch savior & cat lecturer

What do people from other countries mean when they say calico? (I've added the "r" in there so that I can have my 2 cents worth of input.)

As the official Southern Hemisphere representative so far (CK's comment on cats, birds and lunches notwithstanding) I've always understood that Calico is a reasonably thick cotton, often fairly neutral - as far as colour goes. I've got chair covers made out of it. Not a pattern in sight...

So, jmh, I'm (harrumphing) with you... but then I'm (reluctantly) part of the Commonwealth, so I suppose that makes sense.

Hev

"no longer a stranger..."