Emery Smith Studio

I got to 93 days after sowing and decided it was time to pull my flax. Usually you are supposed to wait until 100 days. But it has been so hot and dry recently, the indicators were there that the time had come!

I pulled my flax out, roots and all and bundled it up to dry under my porch for a week.

Then the next step is to ripple  which just means removing the seed heads. You can buy or make tools for this, but as I am just processing a small amount I did it by hand.

The seeds are found inside the seed heads. crushing them releases the small brown seeds. I’m not sure if these will be viable to grow so I will feed them to the birds.

Slowing amassing a collection of handspun yarn I am hoping to weave into a waistcoat or jacket later in the year. Seems a bit odd to be thinking about warm woollen garments when it’s 27 degrees outside but there we are. When you embrace slow crafting this sort of thing happens.

And the summer solstice tomorrow reminds me the Earth will continue on its orbit. Its only a matter of time before the season turns. I hope you can all find a moment of stillness and rest this weekend.

Back in April I decided to plant some flax. Flax is the plant that linen comes from. It has been grown all over the world for thousands of years for fabric, food and oil.

Linen is one of my favourite fabrics to sew and wear, and I love to learn new crafts and learn about textile history – so it seemed a natural progression for me to learn to how to make it!

There are a lot of processing steps between a flax seed and a piece of linen cloth, however, and I don’t have much gardening experience.

So I decided if I only manage to get to the flowering stage, and no further, I will be a happy human. And here we are.

Of course I do hope I can get further in the process – I’m growing my flax as part of the @lets_grow_flax group so I’m not on my own!

(A few people have asked how much linen my plot will produce – I think my 1sqm plot should be enough for a small dishcloth sized piece of fabric!)