I grew my own cloth! 🧶 the entire flax to linen process 

I realized that "slicker brushes" for dogs are carding brushes to card the dog hair for spinning later, after I got into spinning. :)

​@valerieprice1745 yes I got two cheap dog brushes online for 3 euro each with wooden handles as my carding brushies. Instead of 60 dollars ..they look exactly the same and still working 6 years after.

Wow!! Thank you for sharing.

😯😃👍

Dog slicker brushes work for wool cleaning. I bet the would work for flax

I didn't have that problem, then again,the rest of my bag had paper towels stuffed in it.

Thank you so much. I have always wondered how the women of old went through the process of making their cloth from the ground up. Thanks for creating this educational presentation for all who are interested.

I always wondered why seeds were stored in paper, thank you!

good to know

That’s not entirely true… If they are “sweating” and rotting, they are too wet and are also likely to sprout. It might be good to store them in paper at first when you are storing your own seed (I do) but if you buy seed and it is in plastic, it better be good as it is…. Also, storing them in paper can invite humidity or even spillage if you have a water accident near your seeds. I store my seeds inside their paper packages inside a ziplock plastic freezer bag. I’m a “big” gardener from multigenerational gardener family in an agricultural area.

their are many things that make you wonder about the first person to do the thing, I dare you to really think about dairy products, or black eggs, etc...lol history is both strange and more than a bit terrifying

Yes, there are loads of things with complex processes which always make me wonder 'how on earth did they think of that? What made them put A together with B then do C and come out with something completely different?'

When you have nothing but time and trial and error you can do a host of things, we are kind of relying on technology and arent learning to experiment any more really

Also, seeing the process, it's very likely they just came about it accidentally and slowly improved upon the method overtime! When I was younger I would play with dried plants by breaking them apart and looking at their fibers, I'm sure when there was far less to do more people did the same. Possibly plants they had near water sources dried out out and whent through the process completely naturally and when someone notice the long fibers they might have believed they had a use I highly doubt they went into the process trying to find a way to make cloths, they probably found the fibers first and its uses later maybe starting as a type of rope

There was no TV/newspapers/no social media, people had time and patience to try and savour and enjoy things. Also, there weren't many things around, so they had to be creative and also different, so they could sell novelties. @@catwoman7462

A technique that can be used to get a woven piece is to make bobbin lace.

Two techniques for weaving that take very little space: first is the inkle loom. It allows you to make woven fabric about the width of a very wide belt, which you can then sew together to make larger textiles. The other can be as broad as you can manage it, which starts at the width of a narrow strip of inkle loom fabric, and extends to widths I, a beginner weaver, probably can't imagine. It's called a backstrap loom. Neither of them takes much space to use: the inkle just a bit larger than a place at dinner, the backstrap about as much as you'd need to do yoga. The inkle in storage the same size, the backstrap a rolled yoga mat.

came down here to see if anyone else had pointed this out! time of year is not just about temperature

I've only ever tried to grow weed and i was wondering if this was a factor for flax like it is for weed lol

@@popejaimieI learned a ton about plants in general due to learning how to grow the same said greenery. LOL. And yes, it applies to the majority of flowering plants (i.e tomatoes, squash, etc.), which I figured out when I attempted to grow some roma tomatoes in my grow room. They would not flower until I changed my light schedule.

Production of linen sold in stores is most likely automated, so $20 is still over priced. The farmers that put in most work get pittiance.

Absolutely right ​@@ghostratsarah

​@@ghostratsarahThe farmers aren't growing finished bolts of linen... if you buy the linen and make a dress that sells for $100 you don't send that money back to the fabric store to give to the supplier to give to the weaver to give to the spinner to give to the farmer who grew the flax

You can also get old/antique linen fyi. There are stores that sell it. Theres some thats from 1890s, all hand made. I think thats especially cool to use something like that on a project

I'm in the exact same boat!

Same, i dont really even have a strong interest in textiles, i just wanted to learn how the cloth is made

It’s 2:30am and I should really be asleep but this is so interesting I have to finish watching

They are very expensive in my country...a prized fabric. I suppose linen managed to keep its price relatively "affordable" since more people grow/make it.

I'm fed up that our current world is hyper focused on productivity and efficiency. Why not take your time and appreciate the journey of making things? I know it goes against capitalism and conservatism to go back to your roots and slow down, but I don't care. Modern conservatism is a fashion trend that will die and be forgotten soon. But these crafts and traditions will never die. 🌈

​​@@robertschnobert9090 It goes against conservatisim to go back to your roots? It is the progressive ideal that has pushed us towards efficiency and productivity. The consumerist culture values using the cheapest materials for the least ammount of work. I would call myself a moderate conservative, what you are conflating with conservatism is that "conservatism" is conserving the culture. The problem now is that the culture is peogressive so the neocons are technically conserving progressive culture. I want to look to the times before the industrial revolution, to conserve the environment, to conserve a prior, pre-christian moral philosophy, to conserve the world we live in.

I also will look that up, thank you

Thank you. I looked it up and will watch it (no German, but I can understand pictures!) A while ago I watched and bookmarked a video I enjoyed about the traditional process of making Irish linen. Also very interesting! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tqntI3Ec8Ew.html

It can be watched with English subtitles on RU-vid.

I thought about her too - she did a video where she made hackles out of blackthorns.

I love a bunch of her videos too!

Same. The DIY bug bites when you least expect it.

Fair play to you! That sounds like a fun experiment! I wonder if having a splash of apple pectin in the water would be useful as well - the pectin in saliva is the reason it's been used historically if I recall correctly. I keep meaning to ask someone who might know but always forget 😅 Sally Pointer is a treasure for learning little tidbits about making fibres from plants (nettles, flax etc) and experimenting with things like natural dyes. She's an experimental archaeologist I think, highly recommend her channel if anyone is interested in this sort of stuff. There's also a Spanish documentarian who has put up his videos on RU-vid - Eugenio Monesma. He's got some fantastic videos of people practicing traditional crafts like the flax to linen process and wool making and spinning. All the videos have English subtitles and are so great to watch; you pick up some really interesting information from watching master craftspeople at work :)

I am a "recovering" perfectionist. I came across an idea to focus on perfecting the process and not so much on the perfect outcome or end product. This shift in mindset has really helped me. Hopefully, it will help others, too. 🙂

@@VKRollins Perfecting a skill is goals. Any project that failed isn't wasted if you learned from it, have another go, and do it better this time.

From bottle-fed orphan lamb to finished woollen garment is also a wild ride of skills. But if you do get a lamb or goat or alpaca, please get at least two, because they are herd animals and get lonely and very scared and stressed if they're by themselves. On the upside, you can get one of each and they will form a herd even though they're all different species.

@@tealkerberus748 I'm not getting them anytime soon, but good to know that they herd with each other. I didn't know that! I plan on doing a lot more research before purchasing any animals, but fortunately, my dad grew up on a farm (though they raised beef cattle primarily) and has some friends who have raised alpaca and sheep for wool.

Slaves maybe?

Does it say what the title/author of the thesis is anywhere? I've been searching for a few minutes. I didn't see anything here so I'll try my hand at trying to Google it! I'm also interested in that thesis, haha. 😂

Yeah the extended version ❤

I came here to say a bunch of this - I read thru the comments section first to see if someone else had said it first, and here you are 😂 Additional detail on growing the flax, in case it helps folks - Damping off = tiny seedling becoming weak and falling over, likely due to mildew on the soil. Mildew/mold on the soil = soil is consistently damp enough for it to grow But seedlings need moist soil (especially when grown in containers of any kind since the soil in containers dries out very quickly and there's none "below" to draw from) because they have tiny root systems - roots aren't wet-dry shop vacs, they can't "suck" water into the plant. They can only take in water from the soil that's immediately on the roots. So: water the soil pretty deeply, but the plants all ABSOLUTELY need to have their own space, to promote *airflow* so that the surface of the soil spends as little time wet as possible & you re-water the soil as infrequently as possible. Another factor is light. Almost no seedling is going to get the start it needs (for growing strong & in the timeframe it normally takes to mature to harvest stage) if the days are getting shorter on it. In addition to fewer daylight hours overall, the ANGLE of the sunlight that the seedling is getting is suboptimal (it's less "strong" light in the winter). If a plant is established when the sunlight is better, it might not be *as* effected as the fall/winter advances, but a seedlung is going to be very challenged. This is where grow lights are needed, and jomercer's comments about how to set them up. The lighrs have yo be IMMEDIATELY over every plant - and plants not IMMEDIATELY under a grow light aren't getting the light you're trying to provide them with. Light is important because a plant grown in suboptimal light will be weaker. This likely means any fibres grown in flax stems in suboptimal light are more easily snapped. Doesn't mean you can't spin it or make cloth from it! It just might be less "strong"/hold up less well to wearing and washing, than you'd like. But it's one of the factors that contributes to the differences you noticed in the wild vs cultivated fibres you produced. So: my biggest pieces of advice for producing flax for fibre is to sow the seeds in the spring when the light will be *improving* for them every day, and to work on planting the seeds farther apart, or to thin AGGRESSIVELY, *early,* if any are growing too closely. What is too closely? That, I don't know; I've never grown flax before. It's true that you want them spaced closely, to encourage them to grow tall without falling over. idk, maybe 1 square inch per seed? Not sure if that's too much room or not enough. And some will ALWAYS fail to germinate, or not survive, so when growing on a small scale it's better to plant a little more thickly and then THIN. 👍

Just wondering, is a tanin soak be more environmentally friendly then alum?

What a good idea! I have never thought of using a fan for my indoor seedlings. Definitely a strategy I will start to use. 🙂👍

Didn't have capitalism and lots of technology to distract them. Imagine what you could achieve, only working 4 hours a day to survive, and having the rest of the day to play 😂

I'm replying to my own comment to say I got some shorter staple roving (Corriedale - if anyone else is looking for keywords) and while my spinning is still a bit pants, it was immediately more manageable.