The Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival

Here's a short video clip I shot at the Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival in Stahlstown, PA yesterday. It was a fun little festival and I enjoyed watching the demo and seeing their flax breaks and other equipment. In the foreground is the breaking, behind that is the scutching, and off to the right is the hackling.

 

On the way there, we stopped for breakfast at a fun little doughnut shop in Cranberry, PA. The name was Peace Love and Little Doughnuts. If you ever have the chance to stop at one of these doughnut shops, don't miss the opportunity!

The culmination of my growing flax for linen experiment

So, three years ago I started growing flax in the hopes of processing it into linen yarn and then making something with it. This is something that I have secretly wanted to do ever since reading A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich back in the 1990's. 

 

Martha was a midwife in the later 1700's in New England. She kept a kitchen garden, an herb garden (medicinal) for her profession, and she grew flax so that she could make linen to weave into clothing. The flax garden is barely mentioned in her diary and in the book, but it fascinated me. She was by no means unique in this, many people made their own linen clothing this way.

 

Fast forward to 2010 when I took up spinning. Right away I started researching about growing flax for fiber. I started growing flax in 2012. I started with a small experimental plot, and then graduated to a larger one after that. For the past two years, I've grown flax in a 10' x 20' plot, harvested it, processed it into flax fiber, and spun the fiber up into laceweight linen yarn. 

 

After two years I had about 1500 yards of laceweight linen yarn - enough to make something. I chose to make a garment, and chose the knitted pattern Seta Sun, which I found on Ravelry. If I had a loom I would have woven cloth or towels, but I don't have a loom yet.

 

I began the top last week and finished yesterday. Here are a progression of photos:

 

 

 

I messed up the lace pattern at the bottom, but I actually like how it turned out, so I refrained from ripping back and re-doing. 

 

 

 

I really love my top. I am so happy to have done this after thinking about it and wanting to do something like it for so many years, even before I started spinning.

 

I will continue to grow flax for linen. Someday I'll have a loom, and then watch out! Until then, I'll make knitted things like this top. 

This year's (2015) flax-for-linen plot

 I planted my flax a few weeks ago by strewing the seeds. I had 13 ounces of seeds, 5 oz. of my own that I saved from last year's crop, and 8 oz. more that I bought. My plot is 10' x 20'. I divide that roughly in half with a roughly 1-foot swath down the middle for walking on to help with weeding. I prepare the plot by tilling in compost/manure, lime (flax likes a sweet soil), and alfalfa hay (which acts as a sort of slow-release nitrogen). Here is the plot just after strewing the seeds, raking lightly (lightly is the key word), and then stepping all over it to tamp it all down a bit:

 

 Here the flax is starting to sprout:

 

Here it's getting taller:

 

This is from today, it's starting to shoot up. It needs a good weeding, but we've had a week of steady rain and the soil is just too wet to weed. I've laid newspapers down the middle and put straw on top of that to keep the weeds in check on my little walking corridor. I think the flax is at week 4-5 here, I believe I planted in the week after Mother's Day:



 

 

We are finally looking at a rain-free day today, but this weekend it's back to rainy. It's really getting swampy out there, You can see how the plot next door on the left is flooded. Hoping things calm down a bit rain-wise, but it looks like we'll get still more in the coming week.

Knitting with homegrown, handspun linen

 I have finally begun knitting with my homegrown, handspun linen - the next stage in my flax-to-linen experiment/project. If you wish to see more about my foray into growing flax for linen, click on the flax and flax-to-linen labels at the bottom of this post.

 

 

 I'm knitting a pattern I found on Ravelry, called Seta Sun. You can find it here: Seta Sun by Birgit Freyer.

 

I have a lot going on, so it may take me a while to get this thing done, and who knows if my knitting skillz are up to it? But here goes!

Using Tow Flax

 

When processing flax, most of it becomes tow flax - the shorter fibers that stay behind in the hackles when hackling the flax. So you have a lot of this shorter stuff, much of which is quite nice.

 

Lately, I've been hankering to use my tow flax and have been experimenting with blends. I made a small sample blend of flax, cotton and silk. I carded the fibers and spun it up into a few yards and then knitted a small swatch. It was very nice, but a cat found it during the night and took it off somewhere, probably the basement to its hidey-hole, so I don't have any pictures of that swatch. 

 

I really liked the linen/cotton/silk blend, but decided I wanted to stick to all-plant-based fibers for a project I have in mind. So I tracked down some ramie, which is a bast fiber gotten from a type of nettle. I used my hand cards to make a small sample of a roughly 33/33/33 blend of flax, cotton and ramie. I spun the blend up into a few yards of a 3-ply yarn.

 

Below you can see the materials and the resultant swatch (click on the pictures to see them larger): 

 

Tow flax, cotton, ramie, and the blend in a knitted swatch.

And here is a closer look at the swatch:



Linen, cotton, ramie blend, approx. 33/33/33.

The linen/cotton/ramie is also a very nice blend. The project I have in mind for it is the Leksak Lady, found on Ravelry. The pattern calls for worsted weight, which I think would be a bit heavy in this blend, so I'm hoping I can successfully alter the pattern for a thinner gauge of yarn. If not, then I'll search for another suitable pattern for this yarn.

I'm planning on dyeing the yarn with natural dyes, possibly goldenrod or tesu or onion skins for a nice golden yellow color.

Anyway, that's how I'm hoping to use the tow flax I have on hand right now. The resulting yarn should be comfy and breathable. 

Where I bought my flax seeds for 2015

When I first started growing flax, I bought my flax-for-linen seeds from The Hermitage. They sell Marylin variety of seeds from the Netherlands, which is one of the main varieties for linen flax. The only problem I had was that the seed came coated in nasty chemicals meant to prohibit diseases that flax is prone to.

I didn't really like that idea, so I saved my seeds from one year's crop to plant the next year. This worked well, but I didn't produce quite enough seed last year to plant my regular amount. I searched for a source of fiber flax seed that was uncoated. It was hard to find, but I did find a source of uncoated Marylin flax seed. The original source of the seed is again the Netherlands, but the shop from which I bought the seed is in the U.K. The shop is Wild Fibres. Click HERE for the link to their flax seed page.

I have about 5 ounces of my own seed saved, plus 8 ounces from Wild Fibers. I'm very happy and can't wait for planting time. I usually plant 8 ounces, so I should have plenty for this year.

Last year's flax crop is finally ready to spin!

 

I finally got all of my 2014 flax crop broken, scutched and hackled. I was late in planting last year, and therefore late in harvesting and late in getting the crop retted. By the time the flax was dry from retting, I only had a small amount of time to start the rest of the processing before winter weather set in. Now that spring has sprung and the snow has finally melted, I've been outside finishing what should have been done last fall. Now I''m hoping to get it spun up before gardening starts in earnest. 

 

My 2013 crop yielded 7.2 ounces and about 800 yards of fine, two-ply linen yarn. I'm hoping to get around 500 yards from the 2014 crop. Cross your fingers!

Retting Flax in an Inflatable Kiddie Pool

This year's flax crop is retting in an inflatable kiddie pool that I got on clearance this same time last year. Last year's crop retted nicely in it. The pool made it through a year of storage in the garage without sustaining any leaky holes, so here we go again!

I saved the seeds from last year's flax crop so that I wouldn't have to buy seeds this year. All sources I can find sell coated seeds - the coating contains nasty chemicals that will protect the growing flax from disease, but I'd rather not use it.

The seeds sprouted really well, but this year's crop didn't get as tall as last year's. It could be for several reasons. One big one of which was that I didn't weed as often as I should have and there was a lot of grass in there with the flax. 

At any rate, it's been pulled, dried and rippled, and is now retting. I don't think I'll get the 800 yards of spun flax that I got last year, but I'm hoping I'll get at least 500 yards. We'll see.

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.

This year's flax crop, all processed and ready to spin.



 

This year I grew about twice the flax that I grew last year. It was a good year and the flax grew well, it seemed a bit taller than last year's crop. After pulling, retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling, I've got about 7.2 ounces of flax to spin. that's a lot better than last year's 1.4 ounces (you can read about last year's experiment in growing flax for fiber here).

 

Here's what I have to show for this year's effort:

 

 

 

The little blue bit is a small amount that I tossed into one of my Japanese indigo dye pots. It was only in there for about 10 minutes. I wanted to get a sense of how the flax would take up the indigo dye.

 

I did a much better job of retting this year, and the flax turned out much nicer and much softer than last year's small crop. There's still room for improvement, but I'm excited about spinning this up over the winter.

 

And I ended up getting about 8 ounces of seeds  for next year's crop. That's what I planted last spring, 8 ounces. I'm happy that I don't have to buy my seeds again. The seeds I had been getting were pre-treated with things to help protect against certain flax diseases. I wasn't too happy about that, but couldn't find any other sources that weren't also pre-treated. But now I have clean seed from this year's crop. Hopefully it'll be enough to keep the flax plot going.

My second year of growing flax for linen; what does the future hold?

This is my second year of growing flax for linen. Last year I planted roughly half of a 10 ft. x 20 ft. plot with flax. The other half of the plot consisted of Japanese indigo and a couple of marigold plants. In my previous posts about last year's garden, I gave the dimensions as 10x10, but it was actually 10x20, half of which I planted in flax.

 

This year I planted the full 10x20 plot in flax with a space running down the middle to make weeding easier. This equates to roughly 8 ft. x 20 ft. of flax.

 

It's been growing well, despite having been swamped by weeds when I was away for two weeks, and then spent a third week recovering from some nasty bug. Nevertheless, it's been weed free now for a couple of weeks and doing well.

 

Here is a picture of my plot of flax, next to which is my dye garden with marigolds, Japanese indigo, Hopi black sunflowers, and some nasturtiums, which are hidden (click on the pictures to see them larger):  

 

The thing of it is, I've recently found out that the seeds I've been using for my flax gardens are pre-treated with a chemical which is supposed to inhibit some of the common diseases that can affect flax plants. The chemical is nasty.

 

I don't really like the idea of using treated seed, and in fact it's against the rules of the community gardens where I have my plots because only organic methods are supposed to be used here.

 

What's doubly bad is that the type of seed I use is almost the only seed that's available anywhere in the US for fiber flax. It's a cultivar called Marilyn and comes from the Netherlands already pre-treated. I have found one, or possibly two, other types, but it looks like they may also be pre-treated.

 

So where does this leave me and the possibility of future flax gardens? I'm not sure. I can save my seed from this year and use it for next year's plot. The problem there is that I will not produce enough seed to plant the equivalent square footage. Last year's seed harvest was approximately 1/2 cup of seeds. I did use it to fill in some bare patches in this year's plot, and even though last year had some stressful conditions which I'm sure affected seed production, I'm pretty sure I won't get enough seed this year to plant next year's full plot.

 

So is this my last plot of fiber flax?:



 

I'll keep looking around for a seed source. My flax-to-linen experiment is ongoing. It takes more than one or two seasons to learn the exact right time to pull your flax, and exactly how long to rett it, and deciding which method to use, etc.

 

It's been an enjoyable experiment thus far, and I hope I can find a source of untreated fiber flax seeds so that I can continue the experiment into the future. 

Flax to linen experiment - Spinning the flax

Here is the latest installment on my growing flax for linen experiment. It all started last spring with the planting of the flax. Over the summer it grew, and in the fall I harvested it. After processing the flax plants into flax fiber, I am ready for the next step: spinning the flax. All of the previous steps are documented in various posts which can be found here.

Here is the hackled flax that my garden produced. It doesn't look like much, it's only 1.4 ounces, but keep in mind that only 10% of the flax plant results in fiber, and of that 10% only 3% is the, nice, long kind. The other 7% is tow flax. I do still have a little bit that hasn't been broken and scutched and hackled, but I think the whole lot will still come in at under 2 ounces when all is said and done (click on any of the pictures to see them larger):

 

 

Now, I do have a bag full of tow flax which brings the total up to about four ounces or so. The tow flax is what's left in the hackle after hackling the flax. The tow flax is shorter. I'll probably card it up, and maybe experiment with blending in some cotton, and spin that up later.

 

It can't be any courser than the longer flax. I'm not sure if the coarseness and stiffness is due to the quality of my particular garden flax (it grew under near-drought conditions), or that I didn't pull it at the optimum time, or that my retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling leaves something to be desired:

 

 

 Here's my hackle:

 It's an antique, really, made in 1834, but it's still sharp and sound and got the job done. I found it on ebay and paid $70 for it. I don't think anyone still makes these, at least I haven't found any contemporary ones in my searches:

 

 So, my bundle of hackled flax is roughly the length of my arm:

 

 I divided it in half, spun it onto two bobbins, and then plied it:

 

 The resulting skein is about 119 yards long:

 

 It's rough and stiff right now:

 

 

 But the thing about linen is that with washing it will soften and relax. Here's little swatch of linen that I knitted up a couple of months ago with a small amount of the flax that I processed before all the rest:

 

 

 I spun this a little bit finer than my skein above. I'm not a proficient flax spinner, I have lots of room for improvement:

 

 

 You can see that it is a bit 'hairy', but it's soft and flexible: 

 

I'm hoping whatever I make with my little skein will turn out as soft and flexible:

 

I still don't have a loom yet, and anyway, I only have a small amount to work with, so I'll be knitting whatever it is that I'll be making. It'll probably turn out to be a small kitchen cloth/towel. If I wait to see if I get something good out of blending the tow flax and cotton, perhaps I can make something else. In any case, that's the next step in the experiment, and fodder for another post.

Flax to linen experiment - breaking, scutching, and combing

Okay, here is a report on further progress in my growing flax for linen experiment. As previously posted, I grew some flax this past summer in order to see if I could turn it into spinnable fiber, and then into linen.

 

Previous posts: growing the flax, harvesting the flax, retting the flax.

 

The next step in the process is breaking the retted flax to release the usable fibers. I let the retted flax dry out. My husband built me a flax break. You can find videos on YouTube that show people using antique flax breaks. Although I searched for a long time, I couldn't find any flax breaks, antique or otherwise, for sale anywhere (although I did find plans for building a good one), so I asked my husband to build me one (we didn't use the plans, we improvised).

 

Below are some pictures of me using my flax break to break the retted parts of the flax plant up in order to get to the durable flax fiber (click on any of the pictures to see them larger):

 

 

 

The arm of the break comes up, and then is smashed down onto the bundle of flax:

 

 

After breaking the flax, comes the scutching. You can look this up on YouTube, too. Basically, you're swiping away the bits of retted plant material that still cling to the fibers, and sort of fluffing the fibers up as well. In the picture below, you can see a bundle of retted flax on the table that hasn't been broken yet. In the foreground you can see me scutching some broken flax:

 

 

My scutching board is just that, simply a board. My scutching knife is made out of a wooden pizza paddle which is cut in half - it needs to be improved a bit, but it worked:

 

 

The fibers become a little cleaner and a little fluffier with scutching:

 

 

Next comes the combing. The combing is done with a flax hackle (there are a few different spellings). It seems that the only flax hackles you can get a hold of are antiques. After much searching, I found a very nice one, made in 1842, on eBay. I paid $70 and am very pleased with it. It's got a lot of nasty, sharp teeth, is still very sturdy, and works really well.

 

The flax is pulled through the teeth to further clean and straighten the fibers: 

 

 

Shorter fibers are left behind in the hackle, along with any remaining bits of retted plant material:

 

 

Lash on and pull through:

 

Repeat until the fibers are looking nice and smooth:



 

 

You can find YouTube videos showing this process, too. You can see below that the fibers are looking much nicer:

 

 

What's left behind in the teeth of the hackle is called tow flax. This can be used, too, as stuffing, or to make ropes or rougher cloth:

 

 

And here is some combed flax, ready for spinning:

 

 

Percentage-wise, you get much more tow flax than nice, long, spinnable flax. Only about 10% of the flax plant results on fiber, 7% of that is tow flax, and the remaining 3% is the nice, long spinnable fiber that will make nice linen.

 

Here is the tow flax I've collected so far:

 

 

 

I'm a tiny bit disappointed with the quality of my flax fiber. There are lots of things that may be in play here. My growing flax had to struggle through drought conditions, although I did try to keep it moist. My soil wasn't the best - although I did add manure, lime, and alfalfa (for nitrogen), I'm sure it wasn't enough. I'm not sure if I pulled it at the right time - timing of the harvest can affect the quality. And I'm not sure if I retted it for long enough, because it seems like it was hard to get the retted parts off of the desired fibers - but this could also be a factor of my break not being up to par with the flax breaks of yore, not to mention my scutching knife.

 

The next step will be spinning the fiber. I still have about half of my flax to break, scutch and comb, so it will be a while yet. Whew, this is a lot of work, but I'm have lots of fun and learning a lot.

 

More posts on the great flax experiment to come!

Continuing progress in my growing flax for linen experiment

My flax-to-linen experiment continues. A few posts ago, I wrote about pulling the flax I grew this summer in a 5x10 ft. plot. I let the bundles dry for about two weeks:

 

 

When they were dry, I combed the seed pods off with combs I bought at the pet store which are really for dogs. Once the pods were off, over a few days, I mashed them up to release the seeds and winnowed the mess on windy days to come up with about two ounces of flax seeds.

 

It's probably a poor haul, but I think the drought affected productivity. I won't plant these next year, I'll order more for that purpose. These I'll sprinkle in muffins, etc. It's enough for a few batches of muffins, at least:



 

 

After removing the seed pods, I put the bundles of flax in a large plastic container, weighted them down with old paving bricks, and added water. I let them stew like this for just over a week. This is called retting the flax, which basically means getting the outer parts of the plant into a nice, rotted condition so that you can access the stronger flax fibers:



 

 



After the retting was done, I dumped the water out. Wow! What a smell!!

 

I rinsed each bundle with the hose, hoping against hope to rinse away some of that stench, and I now have all of the bundles laid out to dry:

 

 

Once they're dry, I can move on to breaking (breaking away the dried, rotted parts), scutching (swiping away the dried rotted parts that are still clinging to the flax fibers), and combing (with a flax hackle) the flax fibers so that they can be spun. More on all of this in future flax-to-linen posts!

Pulling flax

I pulled my modest 4x10 foot plot of flax today. I bundled it as I pulled it and then put it in the yard to dry out a bit before further processing. Here I am with my flax before I pulled it =>

 

Here is the flax:

 



 

Here's the plot after pulling the flax:

 



 

 

All the bundles in the wheelbarrow, ready to take home:

 

 

Here are the bundles in my yard. I'll let them dry out a bit before moving on to the retting stage: