You are correct in assuming flax contains a natural mucilage (galactin?) that allows the fibers to stick together for spinning. You can also make "flax spit" by simmering one teaspoon of raw flax seed in one cup of water for ten minutes, then straining the mixture and diluting it with water to a good handling consistency. This can also be used to size the linen singles for weaving.
Starting to try to spin flax on my spinning wheel. So far only have experimented with a hand spindle. Thanks for your video. A lot a great info of what to try.
I am no expert and I think we need to see more non experts trying things. Success or fail is secondary to me. I just want to encourage people to try. It's fun!
I love your approach to this! ‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this so I’ll just get *2lbs!* and just giv’r’…’ LOL Awesome! Looking forward to how see how you process it - I’ve never spun flax so find this all very fascinating 😊
Fibers are smooth so you will have to pull the fibers yourself or you can let a little twist up into the draft zone and back twist a bit to allow you to draft easily and to help pull more fiber out. I spin long line fiber but the technique is similar and it is similar to spinning smooth hair types of animal fibers. Wool has grip but flax doesn't really. I have a few videos on my RU-vid page showing spinning some fine flax long line fiber at my studio. You are doing well spinning from the fold. I have an old video showing spinning flax from the fold.
Thank you for this. I haven't found a lot of videos showing commercial linen top being spun, and I recently bought some that I'm working up the courage to dig into. This helps!
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I have a strik (sp) of flax somewhere in my stash, hopefully I will come across it and be willing to try to spin it. lol.
Thank you so much for this video! I'm in Winnipeg, with family in the Ottawa Valley and in Gatineau, so I heard your accent and put you on the map right away! :) I'm going to try spinning some flax right now... I hope it works out as well for me as it did for you! There may be a lot of swearing involved... :) Thanks again!
Swearing is just power words to get it done lol. And yes, my accent does give me away. Flax is an interesting spin and a challenge for when you're ready. Be patient and it'll come!
On another video they made a thin mop like thing and started from the ends of the fiber... this is all very new to me though! The other person said linen likes to be straight. And folding causes it to break more easily...
The mop thing is called a distaff and it's best for flax that is really long fibers. Mine isn't that kind lol. I do want to try using a distaff one day even with this shorter fiber that I have. It does like to break when you fold it but since I was struggling anyways I thought I'd give it a go. It actually wasn't too bad.
