Tudor Textiles

 Look at paintings of the Tudor Court (Henry VIII ==> Elizabeth R). Now, sit down and spin threads and weave samples of fabrics that match what you see in the paintings. Track your productivity and estimate how long it took to produce the fabrics in those paintings. Look at lists of Tapestries owned by the Tudors, with all of those threads covered by thin layers of gold. Estimate how that gold covered thread was produced - and by who.

You will quickly come to a conclusion that there were textile technologies not taught to modern hobbyists.   The corollary is that there were crofters producing coarse wool fabrics, and there were colonies of  high-end textile workers producing fine fabrics for the rich and powerful. 

This is not the history taught in hobby circles. 

Consider the Wool Act (1571) requiring hats knit from English wool be worn on Sunday. We know that 13 or 14 different professions were involved in the different stages of producing those hats in an industrial process. This is not the mythology told by Queen Victoria's Court, and today passed amoung hobby spinners and  knitters.  

One who does believe Queen Victoria's Court's mythology about English spinning and knitting has posted almost 50,000 times on Ravelry.  She has a bunch of spinning wheels, but I doubt if she could spin the yarn needed for a good fisherman's kit in time to knit the kit in before next season's fishing.  And then there is the question of whether she can knit a good weatherproof fabric.  And there is the question, of whether she could knit socks, mittens, comforter, hat, and gansey without getting carpel tunnel in her wrists.

see also: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol4/pp148-182#h3-0002