Straw Tick Mattress

Stuffing the mattress can be very dusty so i like to do it outside on a sunny day.

Straw tick mattress. However in 18 th century vernacular the bedding was still usually referred to as the tick. When the tick was stuffed it became a mattress or mat mid 13 th century middle english materas. It is very light weight can be rolled into the blanket roll or folded taking up very little space in the knapsack.

The mattress might be called a palliasse or sometimes pallet based on the french word for straw. I chose heavy fabric woven from 100 cotton or duck because it appeared to be more sturdy and durable for my purposes. Also used to refer to the empty mattress bag.

My mother related the story to me that went like this. Straw tick plural straw ticks a bed mattress made from a coarse cotton material or shoddy and filled with usually straw. There were straw mattresses and corn husk mattresses.

Good quality straw is very important with my sensitivities. One complaint about these bed from people who currently use them is that the mattress sags in the middle of a full size bed but they say you correct that by fluffing more straw into the center of. A sturdy cotton fabric with vertical blue stripes called ticking is still used for mattresses today.

P 91 a straw tick was as important to a bed as the feather. Its period of use spans the civil war era by quite a few years so it is perfect for authentic camps. Three giant canvas bags and a lot of dust later and we have straw tick mattresses for all but one of us.

My maternal grandmother used both at her house. It s a comfortable mattress and breaths remarkably well. Every spring the straw tick is emptied the straw laid out in the hot sun to sterilize the tick is washed and the whole thing is put back together.