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Friday, January 24, 2014

Spinning flax into linen yarn

 
So, this past summer I grew some flax for fiber. After rippling, retting, breaking, scutching and hackling, I ended up with 6.9 ounces of fiber, ready to spin (see a picture here.) I finally had a chance to spin half of the flax fiber up into a two-ply laceweight linen yarn:
 
 
 
I got 425 yards total. The other half should yield about the same, so I should end up with between 800 and 900 yards of laceweight linen yarn.
 
I'd love to weave it into a kitchen towel, but I don't have a loom yet. I'm not sure how much knitted fabric it will make, so I'm searching patterns. I'd love to get a small apron out of it, but don't know if that's possible.
 
The yarn is a bit rough, but not as bad as 2012's crop. I'm hoping it will soften up nicely with washings and wear and do fine as an apron, if I can manage get one out of 800-900 yards.