A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting Flaxland, to learn all about Flax and how it becomes linen. It was a full day, hands on workshop discovering the wonders of Flax, a plant which has so many uses. In fact the latin name for flax is Linum usitatissimum, translating as ‘line most useful’. Flax has far more uses than just linen thread and cloth. The seeds are fantastically nutritious, providing a much needed source of Omega 3. There has also been a lot of research, which Flaxland are involved in, into using Flax as a bio-composite. It is marvellous to realise that this one plant can provide so much value as a crop. What was particularly good about the workshop at Flaxland was their holistic approach. Simon and Anne have an infectious enthusiasm for Flax and are knowledgeable about all aspects of its uses.
After a little introduction to flax and how to grow and harvest your crop, we got to grips with the processing. One of the beauties of Flax is the wonderful variety of quirky names given to the steps of processing. Breaking, scutching and hackling are all as delightful as they sound.
Each given a 25g bundle of dried flax plants, we first were taught to break the fibres. Simon has developed a wonderful tool, which helps you to break, comb and scutch the fibre depending on which side or end you use. Breaking involves tapping the fibres with a sharp edge to break off the fibres from the central core. Interestingly in Flax, the fibres are wrapped around a core, rather than being surrounded by a hard coating. This broken core is called Shive. Scutching comes next, where you scrape the fibres with the same edge of the block, to remove the shive and gums from the fibres. Next you lightly comb with the toothed end of the block, to get the shive out of fibres. These processes may need to be repeated a few times to make sure the fibres are ready to hackle.
Hackling was my favourite process. You comb the fibres, using increasingly finer combs, turning them from rough to smooth. The combing polishes the fibres, producing a beautiful lustrous shine. It creates a huge amount of tow, a waste product of fibres that get pulled out. This can also be spun and is great for blending with wool. It is easy when hackling to get caught up in the satisfaction of the movement, keep going too far and you’ll end up with very little finished fibre to show for it!
After learning how to do all the processes by hand, we were treated to a turn on Simon’s cottage factory machinery which he has developed. Make no mistake, this is still a ‘hand’ process, but it does make it faster and easier to process larger quantities of flax. We repeated all the processes, but in a slightly different way. Again the hackling was my favourite, probably due to the repetitive rhythm you get in to, much like weaving. In this set up the combs are fixed in place upright and you drop the fibre on to them, before pulling down and through. It was fun (and faster!) to use the larger machinery, but I appreciated how Simon taught you both ways so that you don’t need to invest in a lot to carry on your learning at home.
Next on the learning curve was spinning! I have never spun a fibre like flax before, mainly sticking to wool. It is a very different process starting with fibre preparation. To spin long line linen, you need to use a distaff, which is a cone that the fibres are tied around. It helps to separate out the fibres and control how many are drawn out when you spin. We practised spinning with drop spindles, rather than wheels, as the next day they had a workshop wholely dedicated to spinning linen on a wheel. I would love to go back next year and take that workshop!
Dressing the distaff involved fanning out the fibres evenly, creating a spider web looking formation. It was very tricky to get them even, with the pressure of knowing that the better it was set up, the easier the distaff would be to spin. You then rolled this onto the cone and tied with a pretty ribbon. Everything about these processes was very aesthetically pleasing, from the gleaming silver fibres to the beautiful displays linen threads on the walls!
Spinning flax felt very different to spinning wool. It was a completely different motion, drawing the fibres out required a lot of concentration to ensure that you didn’t let the twist travel too high into the distaff. After a lot of trial and error, I managed to spin a little yarn. Not very even, but I was pleased for a first attempt!
One of the best parts of the day was meeting the other people on the workshop. It was fantastic to be surrounded by fellow textile enthusiasts! We had lots of interesting conversations about the value of hand crafts. It filled my creative cup and gave me lots of food for thought. The whole day made me keen to start my own linen growing journey. I’ve always been a fanatic about doing processes from start to finish and taking ownership of all the processes, so its no surprise that if I’m going to weave with linen, I want to grow and spin it as well. I am already thinking ahead to next year and where I could plant a small crop.
Then there are the infinite weaving possibilities that linen brings! We were shown this sample of cloth, woven by Anne, which had sections of pure linen weft and a section of wool weft, a collapsed weave. You can see the natural puckering and gathering that occurs, what an amazing design idea! I found this so inspiring and now my head is buzzing with all the possible combinations of this technique. Such a simple idea, but so visually effective. This is one of the many things I love about weaving, how details like this can be built into the cloth. The fabric can be designed for its end process (such as a gathered skirt) from the fabric upwards, rather than needing to add in stitching afterwards.
As you can probably tell, I very much enjoyed the whole experience! I’m interested in carrying on the conversation about linen, have you tried to grow it? There have been a few projects trying to resurrect the Linen industry in the U.K, but I’d love to know how Linen is faring in other countries. Would you consider growing it? Or weaving with it? Let me know!
Keep connecting,
Millie.
Love this. Thank you for sharing. I’ve spun small amounts of mill processed flax, someday I hope to be able to manage start to finish!