Making Linen

Linen is made from the stem fibres of the Flax plant. Flax is a versatile plant which also gives us linseed oil.
It takes around 100 days from seed to harvest.
After flowering it starts turning golden brown. It is uprooted and dried. Then it is pulled up by the roots, laid out on the ground and kept damp until the woody stems have rotted away exposing the flax fibres within (this process is called "dew retting").
The retted stems are then broken (scutched) to remove the woody waste, and the flax fibres combed (hackled) until they are tangle free and lying parallel with each other.
The fibres can be spun - and are then called linen.
Linen can be woven, knitted, and used for making paper (bank-notes in the UK) are made from linen.
The following section tracks linen from yarn to cloth:

A "warp" is made on a special mill which winds the correct length onto a drum in sections which are then wound off together onto the warp beam of the loom.
Each thread is individually "tied in" to the end of the previous warp
The new warp is pulled through the "reed" (the comb at the front of the loom) and weaving can start.
The crosswise threads (the "weft") are carried across the loom by a bobbin contained in the "shuttle". Each shuttle can carry a different colour - up to six in one web.
 

Page updated 03 January 2012