Not content with all the crafty stuff I’m already doing this year, I’ve also decided to grow some flax to make linen.
I bought a spinning wheel last year, and discovered it would
have been originally used to spin flax – the wheel is much smaller than a
normal wool-spinning wheel apparently.
So I thought, wouldn’t it be lovely to grow my own flax, spin it into
linen, and then weave it! What could go
wrong?!
Mr P and I have an allotment – this is only our second year
with it, so we’re still learning a lot and developing the plot. I decided to set aside a bit of the plot
about 4m by 1.5m at the side of the path to grow flax. I got my seeds at the end of last year from WildFibres and I dug the bed over on Sunday.
It was pretty easy digging, if I’m honest – it had been used
before for potatoes, I think, but there were some nasty brambles and the stumps
of some bushes I’d cut down in the winter, including some Japanese roses which
cut my hands to shreds. I’d worked up a
sweat over it though, and I’m still stiff today!
So here my flax bed is – waiting to be re-weeded and edged
next week, and then I’ll sow my flax. So
excited!
Cool!
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