[Sca-cooks] flax processing

Stefan li Rous StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Wed Nov 21 23:03:39 PST 2007


Selene replied to Bear, who was replying to my inquiry:
<<<
Terry Decker wrote:
 > The first laurel in Calontir (I can't remember his name, but Margaret
 > probably does) grew, retted, cleaned, and spun the flax, wove it
 > into linen,
 > then tailored it into garb, making his own scissors and needles in  
the
 > process.  One of his neighbors turned him into the cops for
 > manufacturing
 > drugs, IIRC, during the rather smelly retting of the flax.  I
 > believe he
 > documented the project.
 >
 > Bear

Aye, well if he didn't, surely the police did.  <grin>  The problem is,
unlike wool, which comes off the sheep in more-or-less usable form, flax
takes weeks to "rett" or ferment in a pool so everything that's not
usable fiber drops away.  It can't really be done as a one-day project.
Maybe starting with pre-retted, dried tows.

Selene  >>>

Well, my original inquiry was to find someone who might have made  
some flax themselves, so that I might be able to get a first-hand  
article on doing such a thing for the Florilegium.  Whether they did  
or did not do all the other steps from flax to finished cloth isn't  
the point, although they might make good stories/articles themselves.  
Unfortunately, I still haven't found anyone to write an article on  
turning flax into fibers based on their own experiences.

However, if the police did get interested in such a project, I'd  
still be interested in hearing the details, hopefully first-hand,  
because that sounds like it would make an interesting story for my  
SCA-STORIES section.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****





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