Flax Processing

FLAX PROCESSING

Spring was late this year. The flax from FLAXCAM is still in the shed in the racing bed. A planned visit to a family wedding and Convergence in Vancouver will give us a late start getting it retted - not really a problem, because once the crop is harvested and dried, it can sit for some time before further steps are necessary. If the straw is fully retted and dried this summer, it can be stored until next year or even longer before breaking and hackling.

The photos below were taken in June, 2002 while my sister and her children, Louis and Anna Lieb of Colorado were visiting. Group processing such as this was quite common - together it went faster and everyone pitched in to get the fibers ready to spin.

The flax straw is from Viking seed, purchased at Convergence 1994 in Minneapolis, and planted in our raised bed garden in 1996. Retted in 1997, we have been processing in bits and pieces on nice summer days since.

Surely in times past, working with flax from previous harvests would have been common - in the summer, before harvest, the old dry straw would have been readily available. When sown regularly, this guaranteed material to work with continuously.

Here we are, Anna, my husband Hans and I working together breaking and hackling - and messing up the patio nicely.

The weather was perfect - not too humid and warm, but not terribly hot.

Here in Wisconsin, the summer humidity makes breaking, scutching and hackling a challenge - as the straw should be as dry as possible.

Louis working the flax break.

Anna working the break and Hans scutching in the backgrouns.

Hans scutching.

Sara hackling.

From all of this, we have a bag with a few ounces of fiber that looks as if it will spin into nice yarn. And everybody had fun playing with it.