If you were to make a list of my good qualities, patience would not be found anywhere near the top. Bruce and I speak of those things that increase levels of impatience as being on the receiving end of a bad joke by the Karma police. Needless to say, he copes much better than I do when things spiral out of control.
When this skein of linen yarn popped off of the swift and landed in a tangle on the floor, I lost all semblance of patience, and as a result, it sat like this for 3 months awaiting an improvement in my mood. Every time I looked at it, it seemed to be laughing at me, so I left it in “time out,” to improve its attitude. Small wonder that nothing changed — until a couple of days ago.
That was when I read Josephin Waltin’s wonderful, long post on processing linen. For the past 5 years she has attended Flax Day at the Skansen Outdoor Museum in Stockholm. Each year she has been improving her skills, even bringing harvested flax from her own garden this year to turn into a strick (rather like a skein), ready for spinning into thread or yarn. She posted pictures of all of her efforts from 2014 to this year, where you can see her progress.
Linen is one of the earliest of the textile fibers, with scientists attributing wild flax production to more than 30,000 years ago in the Republic of Georgia (1) . Wild flax was probably use even earlier in Mesopotamia before it was domesticated and grown as a crop.
Flax seed also has a long history of medicinal use, both in seed and oil form. But taking the flax plant and making it into linen thread is a complex and lengthy process, making it both costly and time-consuming to produce.
Parts of the Flax Plant. Photo by Walther Otto Müller
As a fabric, linen has been highly prized since antiquity. A sign of purity, it was used by the ancient Egyptians as a wrapping for mummies. The Phoenicians are credited for introducing flax to Ireland, and by the 16th century in England farmers were required to plant about 1/4 acre of flax for every 60 acres under cultivation to keep up with demand.
Before mechanization, flax harvesting and preparation was extremely labor-intensive, a fact that further increased its value. Young girls were taught needlework and created samplers of their A-B-Cs to develop their skills in placing identification initials on household linens. These linens were recorded in household inventories along with other items of taxable value.
In Colonial America, farmers were encouraged to grow flax to avoid the costly import tax on English linen cloth.
Tying flax into bundles. Photos of flax processing courtesy of Wholesome Linen
Rippling flax
What it takes to make linen
After a growing period of about 100 days, flax is pulled from the ground by the roots and allowed to dry. Generally it was stored for a year before the next steps of processing occurred. Rippling is a process where the flax bundles are drawn through combs to remove the seeds.
The next steps are Retting and Drying. Retting is actually rotting the fibers to remove the fine long fibers from the outer plant material and the gummy substance that holds the fibers together. It was usually done in slightly moving water over a period of time, and then the plants are laid out to dry. After it was thoroughly dry, the plants would be allowed to age, and then the final processing began.
Retting Flax 
Drying Flax
A large wooden Brake was used to remove some of the remaining, unwanted plant material, and then blunt wooden knives were used to beat the fiber against a board. This is known as Skutching. It is hard and dirty work to separate the fibers from the unwanted plant material.
Finally, the long fibers are drawn through metal hackling combs to remove the last of the fiber trash, and are tied into a strick, which is about 1/2 pound of long, silky fiber.
I spent 4+ hours straightening out that skein of linen yarn. It was a (reasonably) successful exercise in patience, followed by several thwarted attempts to produce a swatch in one of several lace patterns I’ve been thinking about for a light-weight pullover to wear over a camisole or maybe even a sleeveless dress. Since I had planned for this to be a summery garment, it will likely be consigned to the “Bin of Incomplete Ideas,” a rather large plastic tub in the studio. It will join MANY other friends to wait until I have gathered more patience to give it the careful thought and attention it deserves. After all, if the yarn had to take that much time and effort to process, it deserves some patient thought to make a garment worthy of that effort.
Meanwhile, I’m going “off the grid” for a couple of weeks with Bruce to refocus for the fall. I’ll post again when I return.
(1) Kvavadze, Eliso et al, 30,000 Years Old Wild Flax Fibers – Testimony for Fabricating Prehistoric Linen, Science 325(5946): 1359.
One of my childhood memories is of flax retting in the roadside ditches of Northern Ireland. The SMELL gets in your nostrils and stays there forever.