Thursday, 14 September 2017

Making linen


Three years ago, when I started this project, I wanted to know the process of turning flax into linen.  How difficult would it be to grow, what difficulties were there in spinning, and exactly how bad did the retting smell?  I had heard it was a more difficult fibre to process than wool but it seemed like such a fundamental part of medieval life, that it had to be done! 


After three years I have learned you can over-ret and under-ret flax.  I have learned you need to let the flax seedpods dry before harvest or you won’t have enough seed for the next year. And I’ve learned that pond retting smells worse than I’d thought possible.

Evidence of Linen use in the medieval period:
  • Anglo-Scandinavian York, Distaffs and spindles (Walton Roger)
  • Anglo-Saxon, Wakerley Grave 74, Tabby-Woven flax (Crowfoot) early 7th century
  • Sutton Hoo pillows, diamond twill linen (Anglo-Saxon, East Anglia, 6-7th period)
  1. The Harvest
  2. Drying and Rippling
  3. Retting
  4.  Drying… again
  5. Breaking and Scutching
  6.  Heckling and Combing
  7. Spinning






November: Preparing flax for linen, Illuminated by Simon Bening (1483/84–1561)
Da Costa Hours, Belgium, Bruges, ca. 1515

For clothes to be made of linen, people had to be settled as flax takes several months to grow and even longer to process.

The Harvest
 Linum usitatissimum:  First year flax.  The seeds from these plants provided next years’ harvest.


   
   













  


Flax takes most of the summer to grow.  It is about a metre tall when it is ready to harvest, but it is necessary to let the seeds mature so that you will have a crop the following year.
   Flax must be pulled, rather than cut.  The fibre runs from the root to the tip, so to get the longest fibre possible, you pull the whole plant.



    Last years’ flax (2nd year harvest) dried before “rippling” to remove seeds.

Second years’ harvest.  The fibre goes to the root, so you pull it, rather than cutting it.


Drying and Rippling
The flax must be dried.  This may be achieved on a drying rack or by hanging.  After the flax is dry, you have to remove the seed pods (rippling).  Children are very useful for this purpose.


Twelve-year-olds are useful for the threshing and winnowing process.
These are the second year seeds that we used to plant this years’ crops.  


Retting
Once the flax is rippled it must be retted. This is in fact, “rotting”.  It can be done either in a pool of water, in running water, or it can be “dew retted” by laying it in the grass and turning it often over several weeks.  The type of retting determines the colour of the final fibre – pond retted is much lighter (and stinkier).
The purpose of retting is to separate the fibres from the rest of the plant.
Once it is retted. It must be dried again. This is the part of process that is most stressful.  You won’t know if the flax has been retted enough until it is dry.  The first year, I barely had any fibre. The second year, I forgot some of the flax in the stream and it over-retted.

Breaking

Once the flax is dry you then break the stem, which falls away from the fibres.  






The flax is broken to free the fibre from the chaff.



The twelve months with signs of the Zodiac, Print on paper, 1530-1562. British Museum


Scutching
You use a scutching knife, a wooden knife, to remove the chaff.


It turns out five-year olds are too aggressive for “scutching”


Tapestry: Novembre (The Months: November) made by Bartolomeo Suardi between 1504-1509

Heckling
You use sharp metal combs to remove the remaining chaff and any of the fibre that might be too coarse to be good for spinning



  Left: Tow. This can be carded to produce shorter fibres for spinning
Right: Combed flax ready for spinning.



Woodcut, German Peasants spinning 1544

Finally, the fibre is ready to be spun into yarn
This is my first lesson.  Most of the linen thread on the threadwinder was spun by Greta Thorfinnsdottir, a very capable spinner.  The sloppy bits are mine.


Bibliography / Bibliographie
Bening,S. Illumination, November: Preparing flax for linen, Da Costa Hours, Belgium, Bruges, ca. 1515
Owen-Croker, G.R. Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. 2004.
Sherman, Heidi. From Flax to Linen in the Medieval Rus Lands
Sherman, Heidi. The Flax and Linen of Medieval Novgorod. Book
Walton Rogers, P. Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate; in Textiles and Textile Production, ed.Hedges.
Hirst K.K. 2016. 5,000 Years of Making Linen: The History of Neolithic Flax Processing
British Museum,  The twelve months with signs of the Zodiac, Print on paper, 1530-1562.

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Dyeing from Scratch

As part of my attempts to understand the process of fabric production, I have started trying to produce my own fibre and dye stuff.

Flax

Three Flax Seedlings... you have to look very closely!

Flax ready to bloom!


Wool

Sheering of the Sheep at Ross Farm Museum
Washing the wool
Marigold

Marigold Seedlings

Marigold in bloom!
Woad

These leaves just kept on coming. 

Coreopsis 


Birch leaves
Birch leaves from our local trees

Goldenrod and Queen Anne's Lace
Left: Goldenrod      Right: Queen Anne's Lace





Wednesday, 6 August 2014

Woad from Scratch


We're growing woad in our garden!
My daughter and I cut the largest leaves. I hope we'll get to harvest more later in the summer.  We tore them into small bits. (following the instructions from Teresinha Robert's website on Woad Extraction )


I heated the leaves in a large pot of water to 80C for 30 minutes; this produced a brown liquid.  After adding soda ash to reduce the liquid, it darkened.

Then I aerated it by pouring it from one pot to another, causing the indigotin to precipitate!



Yay! Woad!







Once the woad settles, and the water is syphoned off, I strained it through silk.  It's a very fine powder!

Monday, 14 July 2014

Aristotle


Me: Aristotle said, "There was never a genius without a tincture of madness."
My Husband: I wonder what you mordant madness with.

Saturday, 14 June 2014

Old Man's Beard


After our recent trip to Ross Farms Museum, I decided I would attempt to dye with the moss I have been collecting (windfall from around the city).  Reading I have done indicated that the moss chemistry varied so much that you could never expect the same colour twice.

Old Man's Beard

The helpful interpreter at the museum told me I should soak it for three days; I decided to let it soak for around ten days (by decided I mean I forgot about it and was distracted by other things).

Soaking the moss

After letting it soak, I put it in a pot with more water (and the mould that had started to grow on it!) and let it simmer for around an hour.
Simmering Moss (a good name for a band?)

While it simmered, I mordanted small pieces of linen, silk, and wool in alum in preparation for dyeing.

At first the colour I was getting was disappointing... So I added some lemons I had left over from the marinade I made for supper.  Decreasing the pH enhanced the colour a little but it was definitely not as dramatic as I'd hoped (when I used my pHmeter, it measured 3!).


Lemons to reduce the pH

As my friend, Lilou (my three-year-old mispronounces it "woowoo") was helping me that day, I have named the colour "Cream of Woowoo".

Cream of Woowoo

I did try to increase the pH by adding lye when I finished my first dye bath, and managed to get it up to 9, but that didn't change the colour of the second dip, which was weaker due to a less concentrated dye bath.