Flax Notes, 19th February 2023
With https://www.tecstiliau.org/home-1 and tutor Rose Green
Flax grown at Tyddyn Teg, Bethel. https://tyddynteg.com
Flax for linen is taller and produces fewer seeds than the varieties grown for seeds.
You want a consistent crop – plants all about the same size so’s they behave the same. Hemp gets cut off above the root – flax gets pulled by its roots. 100 days is what flax needs: longer and it gets thicker fibres, harder to process.
While you can grow hemp on the same land successive years, not so with flax.
Various retting methods – these were laid on the ground. Until done – various times. Barn drying no good, they get mouldy. Remove the seed heads before mice get them.
Mill flax seed for oil in batches, as the oil goes off – oxidises hard. Needs careful milling – soon gets hot, and clean equipment well afterwards.
A flax crop was grown on wasteland at Blackburn by volunteers, hoping to get a pair of jeans out of it. It went to London for weaving, came back as about 3 or 4 square feet – enough to dress the mascot. Did they lose a lot, sending it to London? Air too dry?
The Blackburn organiser hopes to continue and get a pair of jeans.
Fibreshed is an international group of wisdom sharers
Flax is spun anticlockwise – it’s to do with the fibres, they’re happier that way.
Fibres get spun to make a thread, threads are spun to make yarn. I think.
Cordage is different, less refined than spinning.
The equipment:
Breaker – breaks the bast. We started with a hand block, for breaking and scutching
Scutcher – more bast breaking, including some adherent to the fibres
Hackling Comb – like a robust hair comb, special for the job. That outside is made from farrier’s nails, one of a set: this is the one with most nails
Mask – needed, this is dusty work
Distaff – any base, any pole. We made a dispenser from a cone of firm paper (90o arc), with 60% of inner with a tube of card to fit the pole, and void filled with scrunched newspaper. The fibres are held on with a silky ribbon, 3m long. This was also used to hold the fibres to the spreader’s waist before wrapping around the distaff. Not needed on the sliver distaff, which we used with a spinning wheel.
Slivers are made from overlapping stems of flax in a rain gutter, breaking, scutching and hackling them in one length.
We’ve lost our linen industry. And the flax varieties they used.
More information on the process: http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/linen_flax.html
and https://journalwsd.org.uk/article/flax-from-seed-to-linen-yarn
Simon from Flaxland in Stroud is an expert, offering courses and equipment.
Nettle expert: Allan Brown, http://www.nettlesfortextiles.org.uk/wp/. Nettles have a problem – you’ve got to get the fibres out of the nodes.
Rose’s library:
The Big Book of Flax, Christian and Johannes Zinzendorf
Linen – from flax seed to woven cloth, Linda Heinrich
Linen, hand spinning and weaving, Patricia Baines
The Craft of Handspinning – Chadwick. Pub.1989. Amongst second hand books at https://handspin.co.uk/books/
Fibreshed
The Practical Flax Spinner, Leslie C. Marshall
Yarn from Wild Nettles, a practical guide. Birte Ford. See http://nettlecraft.com/
The Journal of Weavers,Spinners and Dyers: Issue 282m Summer 2022, The Linen Issue. www.journalwsd.org.uk. Subscription for 4 issues/year: £20 print or digital, £24 both
Harvesting and retting flax guide – Flaxlands. Not available on their website. See http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/retting_flax.html
At Flaxlands:
Flax and Linen Booklet, Patricia Baines
Videos
Found on https://permies.com/t/210994/fiber-arts/Weaving-linen-hard
Maybe explains why Blackburn got so little returned from London!
and https://permies.com/t/flaxtolinen
9 minutes and 27 minutes respectively
With https://www.tecstiliau.org/home-1 and tutor Rose Green
Flax grown at Tyddyn Teg, Bethel. https://tyddynteg.com
Flax for linen is taller and produces fewer seeds than the varieties grown for seeds.
You want a consistent crop – plants all about the same size so’s they behave the same. Hemp gets cut off above the root – flax gets pulled by its roots. 100 days is what flax needs: longer and it gets thicker fibres, harder to process.
While you can grow hemp on the same land successive years, not so with flax.
Various retting methods – these were laid on the ground. Until done – various times. Barn drying no good, they get mouldy. Remove the seed heads before mice get them.
Mill flax seed for oil in batches, as the oil goes off – oxidises hard. Needs careful milling – soon gets hot, and clean equipment well afterwards.
A flax crop was grown on wasteland at Blackburn by volunteers, hoping to get a pair of jeans out of it. It went to London for weaving, came back as about 3 or 4 square feet – enough to dress the mascot. Did they lose a lot, sending it to London? Air too dry?
The Blackburn organiser hopes to continue and get a pair of jeans.
Fibreshed is an international group of wisdom sharers
Flax is spun anticlockwise – it’s to do with the fibres, they’re happier that way.
Fibres get spun to make a thread, threads are spun to make yarn. I think.
Cordage is different, less refined than spinning.
The equipment:
Breaker – breaks the bast. We started with a hand block, for breaking and scutching
Scutcher – more bast breaking, including some adherent to the fibres
Hackling Comb – like a robust hair comb, special for the job. That outside is made from farrier’s nails, one of a set: this is the one with most nails
Mask – needed, this is dusty work
Distaff – any base, any pole. We made a dispenser from a cone of firm paper (90o arc), with 60% of inner with a tube of card to fit the pole, and void filled with scrunched newspaper. The fibres are held on with a silky ribbon, 3m long. This was also used to hold the fibres to the spreader’s waist before wrapping around the distaff. Not needed on the sliver distaff, which we used with a spinning wheel.
Slivers are made from overlapping stems of flax in a rain gutter, breaking, scutching and hackling them in one length.
We’ve lost our linen industry. And the flax varieties they used.
More information on the process: http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/linen_flax.html
and https://journalwsd.org.uk/article/flax-from-seed-to-linen-yarn
Simon from Flaxland in Stroud is an expert, offering courses and equipment.
Nettle expert: Allan Brown, http://www.nettlesfortextiles.org.uk/wp/. Nettles have a problem – you’ve got to get the fibres out of the nodes.
Rose’s library:
The Big Book of Flax, Christian and Johannes Zinzendorf
Linen – from flax seed to woven cloth, Linda Heinrich
Linen, hand spinning and weaving, Patricia Baines
The Craft of Handspinning – Chadwick. Pub.1989. Amongst second hand books at https://handspin.co.uk/books/
Fibreshed
The Practical Flax Spinner, Leslie C. Marshall
Yarn from Wild Nettles, a practical guide. Birte Ford. See http://nettlecraft.com/
The Journal of Weavers,Spinners and Dyers: Issue 282m Summer 2022, The Linen Issue. www.journalwsd.org.uk. Subscription for 4 issues/year: £20 print or digital, £24 both
Harvesting and retting flax guide – Flaxlands. Not available on their website. See http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/retting_flax.html
At Flaxlands:
Flax and Linen Booklet, Patricia Baines
Videos
Found on https://permies.com/t/210994/fiber-arts/Weaving-linen-hard
Maybe explains why Blackburn got so little returned from London!
and https://permies.com/t/flaxtolinen
9 minutes and 27 minutes respectively