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Flax retting success

Last weekend offered the perfect weather to process my flax. I had water retted it in a kiddy pool like I did last year and it had dried, got rained on and dried again a few times.

Throug all my 11 years of growing an experimental flax patch I realize I have underretted it. It became particularly apparent last year, when my beautiful and plentiful harvest resulted in one thin strick of hackled flax. The quality was better than any I had managed before, but the yield was saddening. This year I stretched out of my comfort zone and aimed for a higher degree of retting. It was a nervous endeavour since I knew that overretting ruins the whole harvest.

Planting

I planted the seeds in early May, with the seed variety Nathalie. I had quite a bit from an earlier seed harvest, and I topped it up with a bag from a local flax husbandry society. This year I grew my flax in two small beds in my community garden allotment, of a total of around 2 square meters. The plants grew tall and even.

Retting

Even if all the steps of the process from soil management to hackling are vital, retting is the one that can really make or break the whole harvest. Previous years I have dew retted and been anxious that someone would step on the neatly spread plants on the lawn. That may be the reason it has been underretted.

Close-up of harvested flax, seed pods in green and light brown.
A strict of flax between two feet, holding a seed ripple in place. Seed pods all around the arrangement.
After harvesting I dry my flax and ripple the seeds.

This was my second year of water retting. After the harvest I dried the flax in merry little bundles by length. Last year I remember it rained a lot in August, but this year it was sunny and warm and my flax dried in just a few days, which made it possible to ret it earlier when it was warmer outdoors.

A blue kiddy pool with bundles of flax under the water, weighted by a compost grid and a couple of bricks.
Bundles of flax drying against a tree trunk.
I build a fake stream to water ret my flax. By placing the bundles in a kiddy pool and changing one bucketful of water every day I simulate a moving body of water. The retting losens the glue so the fibers can be separated from the cellulose core. Once the flax is properly retted (8 days this season) I dry it again.

Just as last year I water retted it by making a fake stream with a kiddy pool and daily bucketfuls of fresh water. I was very brave and waited longer this year, I knew I had some retting degree to spare before it would be ruined. And I was right! On day 8 of retting I decided I was done, the fibers loosened smoother from the stems than they had in previous years.

Breaking and scutching

It was fascinating to break this flax. The fibers loosened so easily from the core and the pile of core waste underneath my brake was bigger than ever before. As I worked the break handle up and down, my smart watch asked if I wanted to register indoor running. I declined. Through the breaking alone I could see much more of the bare fibers than I could previous years and I knew this was a good sign.

A person breaking a bundle of flax in an antique flax brake.
Bundles of broken flax, two orange shoes peeking in the background.
I use the break to break the cellulose core around which the fibers are arranged.

The same thing happened in the scutching – pieces of cellulose core flew wildly in the air as I scutched away. I managed to remove a lot more than I have previous years, and with less effort. The repetitive movements did get me bilisters though, since I forgot to remove my rings.

I scutch the broken flax to remove as much as I can of the bits of cellulose core. The skirt is second hand and eco printed with leaves of grape, Japanese maple, alder, cherry, oak and willow.

Hackling and brushing

Hackling went smoother too, with less effort and more yield than I usually get. I hackled on our balcony on the last day of summer. Meanwhile, I listened to an audiobook and suddenly all the flax had gone through both rough and fine hackle. As I stood there, hackling and swinging the bundle for the next turn, I smelled something anisy. When I turned around I noticed the fennel plants I had been swinging the flax into.

With two hackles (the finest here) I align the fibers and remove the shortest bits. The flax brush is the final touch that brings out the true shine.

The finishing touch was the flax brush, a traditional tool from Ångermanland in Sweden, to smooth down the fibers and bring out that extra shine.

I ended up with 106 grams of very high quality flax – long, fine, smooth and with only a few pieces of cellulose left. The shorter strick is the shorter fibers I got from a second hackling of the waste. I want to spin this outdoors, so I guess it will be a project for next summer, when the new flax grows in the 2025 experimental flax patch.

The quality this year was remarkable! Not my biggest yield (that was 2022 with 136 grams, this year 106), but the softest and best retted.

The day after I had hackled my flax, autumn came. The heat had calmed down and rain poured all day. When I went grocery shopping and put on my jacket for the first time in months, I felt something small and smooth in my pocket. It was some flax seeds that must have escaped from the seed bag when I planted them back in May. I smiled and thanked them for their gifts. In my home office window a bowl is filled to the brim with seed capsules, waiting for their turn to grow gold.

On my instagram you can see a reel where I process this year’s flax harvest.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
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Flax yield

When I talk to people about my experimental flax patch I often get the question of yield – how much flax do I get per square meter of harvest? I have never been able to answer the question since I haven’t documented the numbers. But this year I tried to estimate a flax yield.

It is a relevant and interesting question. But, as always, there are many parameters that need consideration and there is a lot more than just a figure. I will however give you some numbers and then challenge them.

Unprocessed weight

This year I planted two of my community garden allotment beds with flax. They are approximately 3 square meters in total. After I had harvested, dried, retted and dried again I had 900 grams of flax. I have nothing to compare it with, but of the ten harvests I have had it was at least one of the top three in harvested flax.

Newly water retted flax that, after drying, resulted in 900 grams.

Despite careful checks I managed to underret my flax this year too. More than usual, actually. While the fibers were very soft from the water retting, as well as long and fine, there was a lot of waste. The fibers were very strong, so the waste was in the amount of fibers (lots of plants where the fibers hadn’t separated) rather than in length.

Processed weight

After breaking, scutching and rough and fine hackling I had 72 grams of prepared flax. I arranged the flax in two stricks, one with the long first hand quality and one with the second hand hackle waste that I rehackled. In addition to that there was a lot of waste that ended up as mulching in the garden beds.

Broken, scutched and hackled flax. All in all I got 72 grams of spinnable fibers out of my 900 grams of dried and retted plants.

Parameters

So, I have listed some interesting parameters to challenge and break down these numbers. Some of which I can experiment with and improve and others that I just have to deal with. Some of which spell C-A-T-S.

Area, distribution and height

While I can measure the flax patch area there are lots of parameters that I can’t really influence. I aim at fine fibers, so I plant quite tightly, but I don’t measure the distance between the plants. Depending on my deweeding diligence there can be more or less weed between my flax plants.

Tighter planted seeds make more and finer plants. Both pictures are from previous years.

I buy the seed that is available that particular year. Sometimes it is a higher plant sort and sometimes a lower.

Height and fineness

Even if the seed has an estimated height, the individual plants can of course vary. The further the distance between the fibers, the more space the plant gets to grow, and the taller and rougher the plant will grow. This is especially clear in the edges of the flax patch where the plants have lots of space to grow. But height through roughness isn’t necessarily what I want. Where the plants have grown tighter the fibers will be finer, but also shorter. The tighter growing plants will also have less branching and a higher quality than the tall and branched rough plants. Finer fibers would also result in a lighter yield.

Last year’s flax was quite uneven in height.

Some years the plants are very different in height and I haven’t got the slightest clue to why. But perhaps it has something to do with the soil? I have read that flax likes to be planted on an even surface and so I try to make it as flat as I can by walking over the whole patch after sowing, pressing the soil even.

The weather

No matter how well I tend my flax patch, the weather always has the final say. Whether it is too wet, too dry or too windy, the weather will influence the quality of the flax. This year, for example, we had some very heavy rain in a couple of early August weeks. The flax laid flat and got too heavy to rise. Flax lying flat on the ground can result in mold or retting while it is still in the ground.

Retting

The retting, oh, the retting. How it eludes me. I have managed to underret most of my harvests so far. It seems like I need to overret it once to understand what perfect retting is supposed to look and feel like.

I did so many retting tests, but I still managed to underret it. Again.

When the flax is underretted there will be more fibers that still stick together in a band. These will make the hackling more exhausting for me and result in more tangles and broken fibers. A lesser quality, no doubt, and, in the end, more waste.

Cats

I’m not joking here. The more the neighbourhood cats that take naps in the flax field, the more bent the plants will get, resulting in the same disaster as heavy wind or rain. And no one has any say in the catdom other than the cat.

My flax patch has been terrorized by both cats and heavy rain. Screenshot from video.

This year Findus the neighbour’s cat trotted around in one of my flax patches as I tried to harvest it, resulting in tangled plants and lots of fuss. The main fuss was caused by heavy rain, though.

Waste or tow?

I have to admit I’m not very good at taking care of the hackle waste. I do try to unwaste the longer hackle remains and rehackle it into shorter bundles. But I am certain I could make more of an effort with the tufty tow and make a rougher yarn with it. This is actually a parameter where I can step up and turn some waste into unwaste.

Experimental

My flax patch has been experimental from the start back in 2014. My main aim is to learn, which I do every year, sometimes with varying degrees of pain. The more I learn the better quality my flax gets. There was a lot of waste this year. From the 900 grams I started with I ended up with 72 grams of prepared flax. That makes a yield of less than one per cent from the original dry weight. I have nothing to compare it with, but it sounds very low. Still it isn’t as simple as only numbers. I am very happy with the quality of those 72 grams.

Retting is and will always be a factor that heavily influences the yield and a constant adventure. Soil, fertilizing, weather and weeds are others. And cats.

I have written quite a lot of flax posts through the years. Use the search field to find them.

Happy spinning!

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
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Water retting

Since I started my experimental flax patch 2014 I have dew retted my harvest. This year I try water retting for the first time.

Every year I have been nervous about retting. About the retting process in itself because it is such a vital part of the quality and yield of the harvest, but also about something happening to the flax on the lawn.

Lawn issues

We do have a lawn right outside our house. The tricky part though, is that it is not our lawn. Our house is situated in sort of a park area through which people can stroll – there are practically no gardens and no fences. The lawn is also part of the whole row of four town houses.

Dew retting in 2022.

Last year our neighbours were renovating their kitchen. I had laid my flax out to dew ret the day before they started ripping out the old furniture and dumping it uncomfortably close to my flax. It all worked out in the end, but it is a challenge to hog the lawn for three weeks for something people have no idea what it is. To them it is just straw in rows on the ground.

Enter: The kiddy pool

As I went out every day last year to check on the flax and the threat of the renovation bags, I read about my friend Christiane Seufferlein’s water retting. For water retting, a creek or a lake is recommended, so that the water is not still. Christiane did her water retting in a kiddy pool, though.

The kiddy pool water retting on day 1 and day 3.

We live very close to a lake, but I wouldn’t dare to leave my flax where passers-by can see it. We also have a creek, but there is only water running in it in the early spring from melting snow. So a kiddy pool was the perfect solution. I wouldn’t bother the neighbours, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about the flax being trampled on and the retting wouldn’t take three weeks.

Most of the kiddy pools on the market seem to come with either Disney motifs or inflatable palm trees. Or both. I did manage to find a plain rectangular pool, though.

Water retting

I harvested my flax on August 7th, but due to heavy and frequent rain it wasn’t dry until late August. I rippled it and started the retting on August 30th. I threw some soil in the bottom of the pool to get the retting a head start. To keep the flax bundles from surfacing I covered them with a couple of compost grids and some bricks. When I had it all organized I covered the arrangements with hose water of around 20 °C.

To trick the pool into believeing it was a real creek, I removed a bucket of pool water and added a bucket of hose water every day.

Testing

As the days went by, the water got increasingly gunky. Luckily, water retting is usually a lot faster than dew retting. Christiane had told me to check daily once the make-believe creek started to smell. On day 6 I took out a few strands, dried them and checked how the fibers came off the core. It had definitely started but was not finished.

Drying some test strands on day 6.

End of process

I tested again on day 8, but it was on day 9 I decided to stop the process. The fibers came off the cellulose core with ease. On some strands the fibers had come off by themselves.

Knot test not failed.

I also tested the strength of the fibers by tyeing a knot and pulling. If the fibers break close to the knot the fibers are strong. My fibers broke just by the knot. Happy as a clam I removed the flax bundles from the pool, sprinkled them with the hose and put it all to dry around the base of our oak tree.

Our big oak watches over the drying water retted flax.

The weather was warm and dry during this time and the bundles dried quite fast. The stems weighed 900 grams when fully dried.

Breaking and scutching

I have no idea if I will get the time to process the flax before it gets too cold. However, I like to at least break and scutch it before the winter so that it takes up less space indoors.

Newly broken 2023 flax.

Breaking flax is quite laborious, but also something I look forward to doing. My 1821 flax break was made for a shorter person and my back wined a bit. After I felt the first blister in my hand I put on a biking glove. Neither pretty nor contemporary, but sometimes style needs to take a step down. I did take it of for the photo shoot, though.

Scutching my flax. The boon that isn’t on the ground is in my bra.

For the scutching I used my beautiful scutching knife, custom made for me last year by master carver Frej Lonnfors.

Test hackling

As I scutchted I started to suspect that the flax was underretted after all. Even if most of the boon came off, the fibers didn’t seem to separate. I decided to hackle a couple of stricks to investigate.

My soft and golden test hackled water retted flax. I can’t stop looking at it.

I ran the flax through rough and fine hackles and I was right. Despite the experience of ten harvests I obviously still haven’t learned how to ret properly. There were still lots of strands with the fibers glued together and there was quite a lot of waste, in both rough and fine hackling.

Baby soft

But the softness, oh the softness. I have never had a flax harvest as smooth as this! I read that water retting can make the fibers softer than dew retting and in this case it seems to be correct.

The colour is beautifully golden, in contrast to the more subtly silvery brown dew retted flax I am used to. Despite the high waste I expect to get more hackled flax than I have before. I had two flax patches this year, each around 1.5 square meters, and the flax quite high and even in length.

Next summer, sweet flax, you and I. Next summer.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
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Knit, rip, reknit

Have you ever knit a garment, not really used it, ripped it and reknit it into something else? I hadn’t until just recently. Today I knit, rip, reknit and rejoice. Spoiler alert: There is no spinning in this post.

A while ago, when I was looking for inspiration for linen knits, I stumbled upon a top that I really wanted to knit. My plan was to knit it with my handspun linen yarn.

Knit, 2014

However, I did have a top that I had knit back in 2014 in a commercial yarn that was the same as the yarn required in the pattern for this new top. The commercial yarn was a beautiful linen yarn by Quince & co. that I had ordered from the U.S. for the 2014 sweater.

Back in 2014 I knit the East end top by Alicia Plummer. It’s a lovely top, but I didn’t wear it very much. Photo by Dan Waltin.

I did love the top back when I knit it, but when I wore it, it was quite fiddly. The neck was a bit on the wide side and there was always a risk of body parts or bra straps showing. It never occurred to me back then to alter the fit. Therefore I didn’t use it very much.

Rip, 2023

When I found the new pattern requiring the same yarn, I decided it was time to rip the old top. Ripping linen yarn was a bit of a detangling challenge, but after some fiddling and occasional secret cutting, I managed to undo the whole top. To even out the phone cord curls I soaked the squiggly yarn overnight and hung it to dry, lightly weighted. It worked very well, reknitting with it felt no different than when I knit with it the first time.

Reknit, 2023

The new pattern is the Seguin top, by Quince. & co. It is a simple bottom-up knit in the round stockinette raglan sweater with rolled up cuffs and hem and a simple 1×1 ribbed neck band. The detail that makes the whole sweater interesting is a rectangular chest panel in sort of a tight oats pattern. The one over two cable repeat pulls the fabric together, making it look like decreased stitches underneath the panel, but it’s exactly the same amount of stitches.

The Seguin top is the loveliest everyday top.

I really like this detail, that shapes the whole yoke and gives some flare from the bust down. In combination with the simple stockinette and rolled hems it is the perfect everyday want-to-live-in kind of a top.

Shortage and abundance

The further I knit on the Seguin top, the more I realized that I might need to buy a couple of extra skeins. I found an online shop in France that carried the yarn in the same colour. I bought two to be safe, but I ended up using only a quarter of a skein to finish the sweater.

A colour shirt where I needed to join a quarter of a skein of new yarn is a sweet reminder of the thriftiness that is the core of this top.

I knew there was a risk that the colours of the used, ripped and washed 2014 yarn and the new 2023 yarn wouldn’t exactly match, but it didn’t bother me. It would just be a quirky conversation starter in the name of sustainability and making do and mend.

I was right, there is a colour shift from the old to the new yarn, and I quite like it. Ripping and reknitting has been a way of taking care of precious yarn and clothe your family through rough times. Knitting in the round works very well for this purpose – once a garment has been mended and patched until it can’t be mended anymore, it has been frogged and reknit into something else.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Flax patch yarn

I have grown an experimental flax patch in my community garden allotment every year since 2014. This year I have spun my flax patch yarn for the first time.

I always felt I needed to deserve to spin my own flax, to be procifient enough to spin it. There was so little of it and I wanted to be sure I could make it justice. The first years I practiced with commercially prepared flax and last year I got to spin the exquisite 80–100 year old flax from the Austrian Berta’s flax project. And this year I allowed myself for the first time to spin my homegrown flax.

My homegrown flax 2014–2022 is finally spun!

Post prep prep

I always rehackle my stricks right before I spin them. I work every strick through rough hackle, fine hackle and flax brush for a fresh preparation. This gives me the best odds for a smooth yarn. And old preparation can be dense and tangled.

I rehackle and brush my flax right before I dress my distaff.

After I have rehackled and brushed I make a fan of the golden fibers and dress my distaff. My distaff holder is a bit on the short side, so I hold it in my hand when I spin and draft with the other hand.

2014–2017

The harvests from the first years were so small and I decided to spin the flax from these years together. 2014 and 2015 in one joined preparation, 2016 and 2017 in separate preparations but in the same stretch of yarn. 2016 was the year the neighbour’s cat decided my flax patch was the perfect napping spot. The harvest that year was minimal and very bent. 2017 cat free, but quite underretted.

The stricks were quite different. All quite short, probably due to the seed variety I had at the time. Retting and processing was of questionable quality in some of them, but all the flax was definitely spinnable.

2018 and 2019

2018 was a very dry and hot summer. Still, the flax that year was long (due to a new seed variety) and plentiful. I had extended my experiment with a second patch. A bit coarse, perhaps. The flax also had a yellowish tone. 35 grams of processed fiber in total.

I was really into flax that summer, and shot a video that for some reason got quite popular. In the video I dress my distaff with commercial flax and spin it on an in-hand spindle. In the background the lawn is visible, yellow from the drought. A month or so later I shot another video where I prepared my 2017 flax harvest at the Skansen open air museum. The 2018 flax was also prepared at Skansen, one year later.

I’m fanning my flax out in thin layers to prepare for dressing my distaff. The blue distaff band (right) is my spindle spun nettle yarn woven on a backstrap loom and dyed with my homegrown woad. The distaff pin was a gift from my grandfather to my great-grandmother Berta.

The following year was quite modest and underretted. I have no record of how the processing went, I only see a sad little strick of 11 grams.

2020

In 2020 the plants were quite uneven in both maturity and length – some were still green and a lot were totally wiltered when it was time to harvest. This was the last year with the spot I had used from the very start. The plants just didn’t thrive there any longer. Still, spinning the 14 grams from the 2020 yield was quite enjoyable and I managed to spin a fairly fine and even yarn.

2021

I had such high hopes for the 2021 flax. I had two patches in the allotment and the flax was tall. Unfortunately I managed to underret it. As I processes it I cried for all the waste, in both length and amount. I got 58 grams out of it. As I spun it, it was indeed uneven in length. The fattest of the three stricks was rehackled waste and second hand quality.

2022

The 2022 flax is my largest fiber yield yet – 123 grams. When I harvested this flax I did so in sections, beginning with the coarse edge plants, then moving on to the rest in order of length. This technique resulted in four different qualities.

I’m spinning my homegrown flax on my Kromski pre-prroduction Mazurka Henrietta, named after my great-grandmother and my aunt.

It was a pleasure to spin these and experience the difference. The two medium coarse stricks were a joy to spin as they were both long and thick. I could create very well organized fans and lovely distaff dressings.

The rehackled waste

I always rehackle my flax before I spin it, unless it has been newly hackled. A lot of fiber ends up in the hackles as waste. I do rehackle the hackle waste, though, and spin a second quality flax from it. This resulted in 62 grams from the hackling and rehackling of the 2014–2022 flax harvests. To my surprise it was a lovely spin. I thought it would be rough and tangled, but it worked quite smoothly. I did spin it indoors, though, since our neighbours had decided to eat fermented herring on their balcony. It did not smell like raspberry pie. At all.

Experiencing the experiments

As I have been spinning nine years of flax harvests during the past couple of weeks I have gone through all my flax husbandry successes and challenges. I have seen and experienced what soil, rain, sun, cats, retting and preparation does in the spinning and in the resulting yarn.

My flax patch yarn before and after scouring.

Through this I have learned that

  • different fiber lengths in one distaff dressing can result in an uneven yarn. It is worth the time and effort to harvest the flax in bundles of different lengths. A taller plant is also usually a coarser plant, so this separation also results in different coarseness in the bundles.
  • underretting influences all the upcoming steps. From more work needed for hackling and more waste in both hackling and spinning to more tangles in the fan, less spinning flow and a lower quality yarn.
  • rehackling with both rough and fine hackles and brushing does wonders for making the fan. The fibers are well separated and fan out smoothly and untangled.
  • creating the fan in thin layers will result in smoother spinning and higher quality yarn. Think one fiber thin layers.
  • cats need to be kept off the flax patch
  • Switching the patch from one year to the next is important.
  • retting is still a mystery.

I knew all this in theory. But experiencing it – literally – first hand is something completely different. My hands now know things they can’t unknow and I am richer for it. I can look at my 1136 meters and 223 grams of handspun and homegrown yarn and remember all I have learned. I may weave a towel or three with it.

And oh, I ended the week in the most perfect way by spending a whole day with my Austrian friend and flax princess Christiane Seufferlein of the Berta’s flax project. We had the best of times.

I met with the Austrian flax princess Christiane Seufferlein at the world heritage of Birka outside Stockholm.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Linen shawl

Another long-time project is finished, a linen shawl in yarn I spun last summer and have been knitting off and on since then. The flax is between 80 and 120 years old and comes from the Austrian Berta’s flax project.

Many of you may have heard of the Berta’s flax project, started by Austrian Christiane Seufferlein who got a dowry chest filled with flax grown and prepared in the 1940’s. This was the first of many such chests, and now Christiane ships stricks of flax all over the world to enthusiastic spinners who want to honour the memory of Berta and all the other women whose chests have been donated. You can read more about Berta’s flax and become a member of the Berta’s flax Guild here.

My handspun linen shawl is finished! Photos by Dan Waltin.

Spinning on the balcony

I got a few stricks of flax from the Berta’s flax project, between 80 and 120 years old. I spun it in the afternoon shade on my balcony last summer on my sweet flax wheel Henrietta. Since I had learned that flax grows counter-clockwise I spun it counter-clockwise.

80–120 year old stricks of Austrian flax from the Berta’s flax project (left). Spinning on my flax wheel Henrietta, while wearing a blouse that once belonged to my Austrian great-grandmother Henrietta (center). To the right a finished skein of my handspun flax yarn.

The Austrian flax has an overwhelming quality. All the steps from sewing and growing to retting and processing has been performed with such skill and dedication. And why shouldn’t it have been – this was a vital life insurance for the women of the time. And I got to spin it, which I did with love and reference to their work.

I had no specific plans with the yarn, but having seen Christiane in a beautiful hand-knit shawl I decided I would knit something similar, so I plied the yarn into a Z-plied yarn.

Knitting

As I started knitting my linen shawl I realized that I unplied the Z-plied yarn as I knit – the yarn ended up in two strands held together in the fabric. I put some extra plying twist in the following skeins, which made it a little better. The lace fringe at the ends turned out biased, but after blocking it doesn’t really show. But I did learn something! As I keep telling my students: My mistakes are a map of what I have learned.

Knitting in Austria, on the train back home and at home on the balcony.

I brought the knitting project on the train to Austria that summer, the same route my parents had taken in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s to be able to be together. I really wanted to bring the knitting project back to where it had been grown and processed so many decades ago, to the land where my father and my grandmothers were born and where I have three of my four roots. When I met Christiane I could also show her what was becoming of the flax she had so generously sent me.

I could live in this shawl. It is cool, soft and has the sweetest drape. Photo by Dan Waltin.

Flax isn’t very flexible in knitting, so my hands hurt after a while. Other projects have cut in line, but the shawl has always been patiently waiting, cool and sweet.

Harvest shades

In one end of the linen shawl the colour of the flax is slightly darker than the in the rest of the shawl. And that is how flax works – depending on weather, location, retting and climate, the flax can differ in colour. It is a sweet reminder of the natural material and that nature is perfect in its imperfection.

Finishing

I finished the shawl this week. At the same time, we were packing for a vacation in a rented log cabin and things were scattered around the house in preparation for the journey. I wanted to block the shawl, but I realized that it would take up too much floor space. Then I realized I could just bring the shawl and my blocking wires to the log cabin and block the shawl on one of the spare beds. And so I did.

I blocked the shawl on one of the spare beds in the log cabin and wove in the ends down by the creek (photo right: Dan Waltin)

After having woven in the ends I had a finished linen shawl and the perfect location for a photo shoot.

Some numbers

Some questions always arise regarding measurements and weights, so here you go:

  • Shawl weight: 275 grams
  • Shawl measurements: 56 x 200 centimeters
  • Yarn grist: 3200 m/kg
  • Yarn meterage for the shawl: 880 meters.
A finished linen shawl. On the left fringe you can see a slight colour shift. Photo by Dan Waltin

The pattern is Veela, by Libby Jonson.

I am using the leftover 100 meters or so of yarn for a small traveling project which I will show you another time.

References

Here are some earlier blog posts about the Berta’s flax project and how I have rehackled and spun the yarn for this shawl:

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Spring hackling

Last weekend I decided to process my 2022 flax harvest. Flax processing is always more laborious than I tend to remember it. Lucky me I had already broken and scutched it, back in September. Join me for some spring hackling!

As I was watching my 2023 flax babies sprout the other day, my thoughts went to my 2022 harvest. To save workload and storing space I had already broken and scutched the harvest from my two flax beds, so I just had to run it through the rough and fine hackles.

I broke and scutched the 2022 flax harvest in September. Scutched flax to the right.

Processing flax takes time and energy.

Processing flax takes time and energy.

Processing flax takes time and energy.

Spring hackling

Now I should remember for next time, shouldn’t I? Because there is no “just” in flax processing. There is always time, hard work and bloodshed involved. Still, having the flax already broken and scutched back in September was a sweet gift to myself now, eight months later. When I harvested the flax I also divided it into qualities – the edge plants (thick plants and rough fibers) in one bundle and the rest in separate bundnes according to fineness and length.

Rough hackling

I have two antique hackles, one rough and one fine. I let the flax go through both of them. As I rough hackled the flax I could feel and see the difference between the bundles. The finer the flax the shorter the fibers.

Spring hackling! As I rough hackle my flax the boon falls out from the fibers, leaving a smoother bundle.

Rough hackling is always quite straining – the boon (the pieces of cellulose that are made up the core of the plant and were broken in the first stage of processing) gets stuck between the fibers, and so does any underretted fibers. Therefore I need to work to get the flax through the spikes. But it did work and when I looked around me on the floor I was fascinated to see how much boon had fallen out of the fibers and down to the floor.

Fine hackling

When I had gone through all the bundles with the rough hackle, I was ready for the fine hackle. I made sure not to take too thick bundles, to avoid strain on both my muscles and the fibers. Most of the boon and underretted fibers were out by now, but the fine hackling further aligns the fibers and removes tangles and the little boon that may be left. Provided the flax has been properly retted, of course. I’ll get to that further down.

With the fine hackling I further align the fibers and remove tangles, underreted fibers and remaining boon.

In the fine hackling process I can really see and feel the quality of the flax. Since I had sorted it into qualities from the beginning, the bundles were very even in both length and quality. I was very grateful for having gone through the trouble of sorting the flax back in September.

When all the flax had gone through fine and rough hackles I was totally exhausted. I may have hackled for over two hours – flax and fingers. My hands looked like a mess, totally unfit for the photo shoot I had planned. Let’s take it again, with an addition: Processing flax takes time, energy and skin.

Hackle waste

All through the hackling stages I got lots of waste – for every bundle I had to remove waste from between the hackle spikes once or twice. I ran this waste through both hackles again, to remove the very shortest bits and free the usable tow for a rougher yarn and/or weft. It resulted in a sizable strick of my re-hackled hackle waste.

I re-hackle my hackle waste.

The waste from the hackle waste ended up as mulching under my red currant bushes.

Josefin’s vs Berta’s flax

Last summer I spent a lot of time on the balcony, spinning exquisite antique flax from the Austrian Berta’s flax project. Spinning that was a dream. Working with my own flax harvest now gave me a good idea of what high quality flax should look like – the antique flax was perfectly retted and was very smooth to spin. I realized that, even though my 2022 harvest was the best so far when it comes to length, quality and yield, it was slightly underretted. But I am very proud of the process and the result, and grateful for learning something new on m flax journey every year.

Voilá! My 2022 flax harvest all hackled and ready to spin. Slightly underretted, but still my best yield and quality yet.

My 2021 harvest, though, was a retting disaster – so much was wasted in the hackling due to underrating, I almost cried. But then I reminded myself that this is an experimental flax patch – I do it to learn. Even if I will never come near the quality of the antique flax, I know now that I need to be even more thorough in my retting process.

Lessons for the 2023 retting

Retting is truly vital for the quality of the fiber. Had the flax been properly retted I would have been able to remove more boon in the scutching step and less in the hackling step. It would have given a higher yield and lower waste. It would probably also have been a less straining hackling process for me. I’m certain it wouldn’t have resulted in less bloodshed. To add to my high expectations of my 2023 retting I am thinking about water retting it in a kiddy pool.

Flax chronology

I have grown an experimental flax patch every year since 2014. The first year I had no intention of processing the flax, it was just a bag of seeds I saw and bought. But as August came that year I decided to process it after all. The strick is very short and with the circumference of half a rat’s tail, but still, it’s my very first flax.

My experimental flax patch 2014–2022 (left to right). All stricks from 2021 and 2022 are not in the picture.

Some years were underretted, some years better, but every harvest different from the previous. The difference can be in colour, length, retting or other. It is truly interesting to see the result every year and the difference between the harvests. I do like to think that I have improved since I started.

Flax summer of 2023

Every year’s flax harvest i have placed in a paper bag. I have been practicing and procrastinating, waiting to gather enough courage and flax spinning skills to deserve to spin it. In the meantime I have spun commercially prepared flax. Last year, when I spun the Austrian flax I realized the difference and the amazing quality in the Austrian antique flax.

This summer my plan is to spin my own flax, for the very first time. Very exciting and a little scary. I will make separate yarns from each harvest (perhaps not the 2014 harvest) and perhaps weave something where the difference shows. I think the time has come now, I do deserve to spin my own flax harvest. Before I do I will rehackle it all and brush it with my flax brush. You can see a video where I rehackle and brush old flax here.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Live: Christiane and Josefin

I have a live talk for you today! On Saturday, April 15th at 5 pm GMT+1 (world clock here) Christiane Seufferlein and I will chat live about working with local fibers, and you are invited!

Enroll in course here (replay)

It feels so good to finally be able to talk about this! Christiane and I have been planning this live talk for months now and we are both so happy it’s finally happening.

Under the theme local fibers we discuss how we started spinning in the first place, what our main focus is in our teaching and how we work to inspire our students to work with local fibers. There is a limited amount of seats in the course, so enroll now!

Christiane

I first heard about Christiane a couple of years ago when she started the Berta’s flax project. She has custody of a large amount of Austrian dowry chests filled with around 100 kilo processed flax each. The chests are between 80 and 120 years old. You can read more about Christiane and the Berta’s flax project here. At first Christiane used the flax in her teaching, but then she started to send stricks to spinners all over the world.

Christiane Seufferlein when I met her in Bad Ischl in Austria.

I hesitated for a couple of months, but then I couldn’t resist anymore and asked Christiane to send me a strick. Last summer as I went to Austria with my family I met up with Christiane and we had the loveliest afternoon. I also bought some more beautiful flax from her. We had so much to talk about and I keep our afternoon close to my heart. You can read more about our meeting here.

With Christiane’s passion for flax and stories and mine for wool we hope to make some magic for you. This live talk is very dear to us both and we hope you will join us!

Happy spinning!

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to missanything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Parallel projects

I am not a monogamous crafter. I always keep parallel projects. If they are too many I get stressed, but usually I see parallel projects as something positive. It gives me the opportunity to work creatively from pure curiosity rather than the drive to finish the project.

Current projects

I almost never work on only one project. To me there is a time, a place and a company for everyone of them. Here are some of my current textile projects:

  • Two two-end knitting sleeves I have been working on off and on since 2019. I usually knit these at work. I just shove one of the sleeves into my bike pannier on days when I work at the office.
  • A woven band to said jacket sleeves. Perfect for train rides or office coffee breaks. I weave on a backstrap loom, so I can just put the back end around my foot and tense the warp by stepping on the gas so to speak.
  • A four meter weave in the weaving room. I usually spend an hour or two on Saturday and Sunday mornings with the weave.
  • Carding and spinning two-ply woolen yarn from Swedish finull wool.
  • Spinning a two-end knitting yarn on a supported spindle. Whenever I need that gentle flow.
  • A secret embroidery project. When I know what to add next.
  • Picking a fleece. When my hands want to dive into a fleece.
  • A shawl in my handspun linen yarn. It’s been a while since I worked on this, I have prioritized wool for warming my lap when knitting. But spring is in the air and I think it might be time soon!
Three parallel projects – a woven band, a twill weave in the weaving room and a pair of two-end knitted jacket sleeves.

They are all of different techniques, difficulty level, gadget intensity, concentration levels and sizes. I can pick one suitable project for any crafting friendly occasion. My mood, the situation or the company can also steer me to one project rather than another.

Notebooks for morning reflections (left) and for whatever wants to be written (right).

Just as I spin and/or create with textiles every day I write every day, crafting words and paragraphs. Of course I also have several ongoing writing projects, all with their own contexts. I write by hand in a notebook every morning, in the afternoon in another notebook, on my computer before work on home office days and in the evenings blogging on my laptop.

Curiosity

I never work on a project because I feel the need to finish it, or at least that is my goal. I work on a project because I’m curious about it. It needs and deserves my curiosity, I want to give the best of me to the projects I work with. They are too important to rush through. If I can’t find the curiosity right now I leave the project for a while, allowing it to simmer until I’m ready for it again.

Sometimes I procrastinate to actively avoid finishing something. A project that has been part of my life for so long can be hard to let go of. Once I have finished it it will turn into something else, something more static than the project that I created every day between my hands. This concept is not far from when I read a book. Who knows what the characters will be up to if I finish the last page and leave them unattended?

My two-end knitted jacket sleeves, shot in Visby, Gotland, in 2019 (left) and the same sleeves this week, at an equality breakfast lecture at work (right).

Sometimes a project lies unattended for a long time. That doesn’t mean I have forgotten about it. I just need some inspiration from elsewhere to find that curiosity again. Perhaps I learn something new that will bring a fresh persepective on the technique or to my approach to it.

The forever sleeves

My two-end knitted sleeves is one such project. I started spinning the dalapäls yarn on a supported spindle in 2019 and started knitting. As I reached above the elbow I realized I needed to rip a substantial part up to alter the size, which was moderately fun. For some reason I forgot about the sleeves for quite a while. When I reconnected with them again I needed to alter them back. Just recently I caught up to the clean and un-frogged yarn and I realized that I needed to spin some more yarn. In November I visited my friend Lena who has Dalapäls sheep and I got a bag of the perfect wool for the last skeins for the sleeves.

Experience

I am a person of many ideas. Ideas are new in the world need some extra love and care. The projects will still be there, but the ideas need tending to to grow up and ripen. Not all ideas reach full maturation, though. But that doesn’t mean they are wasted. Quite the opposite, every blah idea can be the source of a brilliant idea that I do pursue. I need to kneed the blah and let it marinate to see where it can bring me. Sometimes I don’t see it right away, but sooner or later I understand the purpose of it and how it can help me move forwards.

Parallel inputs

Sometimes I work with parallel inputs – I knit while attending a conference to focus better on what is being said. I listen to music to enhance the experience of whatever craft I am working on at the moment. Sometimes I tease wool with my combing station while watching a series. Usually a costume drama from the early 19th century for some odd reason. They work very well together.

Parallel inputs. Teasing Swedish finull wool with Austen.

Sometimes a new idea comes during yoga asana practice, during my morning reflection journalling or during spinning. There are common denominators here – a creative activity usually gives birth to an idea involving another creative activity. The veins of creativity flow in mysterious ways. And I love it.

I write what wants to be written, spin what wants to be spun and turn to the project that I am the most curious about right now.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to missanything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Rehackling flax

It’s been a while, but today I release a new video! This time I show you how I rehackle flax that has been stored for a while. In this case flax from the Berta’s flax project that has been stored since the 1940’s, but I would rehackle any flax that doesn’t come fresh off the hackles.

I actually shot a version of this video in the summer of 2021. But as the time went by, I realized that I had changed my methods here and there. The footage wasn’t the best either.

A video project within a process

I procrastinated for a year. Then I tried again this summer, 2022. I updated my methods and my phone, so I got better footage too. The summer went by and I changed some more methods. I procrastinated a little more. Then I realized that the changes were due to my process, and a process is always changing.

I spun flax all summer and learned a lot along the way. I changed techniques, tools and my understanding of the process, while developing and refining my methods. Here are some changes I have made since I shot the video:

  • I divide the stricks into even smaller bundles for more control and better quality in the hackling
  • I have a different way of dressing the distaff with the fanned fibers (see archive video below)
  • Even if I put my hand very gently on the hackle spikes to keep the flax on them, there is a risk of getting hurt if I’m not careful. I now place my index finger on top of the fibers just in front of the spikes to force the fibers to stay in the hackle without risking getting my hand hurt.
  • I now use a different spinning wheel, my Kromski Mazurka Henrietta (see image below)

So what I give you is a still image of my methods as they presented themselves in the process then and there, in the shape of a video. I have learned a lot since then and a video produced now would look different. I hope my learning process is to the benefit of yours.

Rehackling flax

In the video I rehackle flax that is around 80 years old. The flax comes from the Austrian Berta’s flax project and the flax stricks have been stored in a chest until just recently. While the flax was in amazing condition it was compressed and needed a little love. In fact, I would rehackle any flax that I didn’t get straight off the hackles.

I rehackle 80-ish year old Austrian flax from the Berta’s flax project.

You can read more about rehackling flax in this blog post and more about the Berta’s flax project here.

Time and air

Preparing fibers invites air in between the fibers. In some preparations a lot of air with the fibers willy-nilly, but still evenly distributed, like a carded preparation. In other preparations a little less air and the fibers parallel, but still evenly distributed, like a combed preparation. Fiber preparation thus evens out the space between the fibers by of course untangling them, but also by bringing air into the fiber mass.

Three comparisons: Old hackling and rough rehackling (left), rough rehackling and fine rehackling (middle) and fine rehackling and brushing (right)

Regardless of whether 80 years or one summer has passed since the original preparation took place, time has gone by. Time causes the fibers to compress, whether it’s protein or cellulose fibers, carded or combed preparation. The air that the preparation brought into the fibers has escaped, making the fiber mass more compact and possibly retangled, depending on how it has been stored.

Spot the difference

Spinning from an old preparation would thus possibly be more straining on both the spinner and the fibers and leave a yarn of lesser quality. If you compare an old and a new preparation you would probably feel a struggle while spinning the old preparation and a lightness while spinning the new.

Newly rehackled and brushed flax is just dreamy to work with.

The old preparation would probably pull out more fibers from the preparation than a new preparation would, making it more difficult to spin an even and/or fine yarn. The drafted fibers would probably also be bundled. More fibers would break, there would be more waste, shorter fibers and more strain in the body.

Listening to the flax

As I prepare the flax and spin it I get the chance to know it. If I just listen close enough the flax will tell me how it works and what I need to do to spin it into its most beautiful yarn. As I prepare the flax I get the chance to see the length of the fibers, the fineness and the condition of the retting and, when applicable, the quality of the first preparation.

Enormously long flax fibers from 80 year old Swedish flax. It has been industrially prepared, and stored in untwisted stricks, leaving lots of tangles.

The video I shot in 2021 (and never published) was with flax I had got from a friend. It was the same age as Berta’s flax, but grown and harvested in Sweden. The length of the flax was impressive. The flax had been prepared in flax mill the 1940’s and stored in untwisted stricks. The unorganized storing resulted in many tangles, a struggle in the rehackling, a lot of waste and a lower quality in the yarn.

My 2021 flax harvest was large, but underretted and resulted in a small yield of short (broken) fibers with lots of boon in it.

If the flax is underretted (like my 2021 flax sadly was) there will be more boon in it, the little pieces of cellulose that haven’t been properly removed because of the underretting, there will be more breakage and therefore more waste.

All is as it should be

I believe we learn from all experiences, even if they at the moment may seem wasted. From my 2021 underretted flax I learned to pay extra attention to the retting process. From rehackling the Swedish 80 year old flax last summer I learned how important the storing is. And from spinning the flax from the Berta’s flax project this year I learned what high quality flax and preparation feels and spins like and what I need to look out for. All my mistakes are opportunities to explore and learn. All is as it should be.

Flax experience and depth

I don’t have nearly as much experience spinning flax as I have spinning wool. But this and last summer have been flax summers and I have spun commercially prepared modern (Hungarian? Belgian?) flax, commercially prepared 80 year old Swedish flax and hand prepared 80 year old Austrian flax. During this brief time I have encountered several challenges and learned what they do in the yarn. I know now that rehackling is vital for the quality and yield of the yarn and for my physical health. I know I need to spend time on the distaff dressing, pulling out very thin layers in my fan (the only distaff dressing method I have explored so far) to distribute the fibers as evenly as I can.

An evenly prepared fan gives high hopes for a high quality yarn.

When I rehackle the yarn I get a feeling of what I need to do when I get to the distaff dressing and spinning stage. Every time the fibers go through my hands in the process I get information that I can use to create the best yarn I can.

Flower and root ends

One thing I got a little caught up in while editing the video was the flower end and the root end. In the video I tie the flower end to my waist as I create the fan. In a previous video I tied the root end to my waist. Tyeing the root end to the waist is what I had learned from a couple of books on flax preparation and spinning. I thought I was doing it the same way this year as I did in the older video, but apparently I wasn’t.

A freshly dressed distaff with what I believe to be mainly flower ends at the top.

I discussed this with a couple of flax friends, and it turns out that in most cases it doesn’t really matter what end you start with when you spin the yarn. It is important to keep track of the root ends and keep them even as you harvest, dry, rehackle the flax. This is to get as little waste as possible through the different steps of the process. But for the spinning it doesn’t really matter. I like to be consistent through in my yarn, aiming towards keeping all the root ends in the same direction throughout the yarn, but it doesn’t seem necessary at all. And unless I haven’t processed it all myself there is no way of making sure which end is where.

A distaff in a thousand dresses

I dress my distaff with a fan as in the video. This is the only way I have explored. But in Sweden there are several other methods that other flax spinners are way better at than me, and in other parts of Europe still more. This is a very interesting topic that I would love to explore more. Marie Ekstedt Bjersing shows a couple of methods she uses in this video (in Swedish).

Since I shot the video I have started dressing my distaff a little tighter. In my experience this keeps the fibers better organized.

Here is an interesting method that Christiane Seufferlein, the head of the Berta’s flax, showed me. And in this video the spinner prepares a fan in the most beautiful way. She also dresses the distaff with the flax tighter, a method that I have been exploring since after I shot my video.

In the summertime

There is still so much to learn and explore. Next summer my sweet wheel Henrietta and I will be out on the terrace again, diving deeper into flax preparation, rehackling and spinning. I still have lots of flax from the Berta’s flax project, but I also plan to spin my own flax for the very first time. I expect to learn a lot from that too.

Happy spinning!

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