I got some strick from "Dave the flax man" and while it's still not the quality I got 10 years ago, it's better than Louet's, if marginally--full of straw and somewhat tangled and not real long or fine, but at least it doesn't smell like a wet, unwashed ram's fleece.
I found an article in the Winter 2002 Spin-Off (the one with the 'spin and knit these sideways garter stitch gloves' on the cover) by Jude Daurelle talking about spinning flax wrapped in a towel. True to form, there's only one picture of the technique, and that one picture is poor, plus the explanation in the text is not real clear. I was wondering if anyone else is familiar with this technique and can offer some suggestions. I find that, no matter how well I recomb the flax and whether I wrap it snugly or loosely, it's still tangling as it drafts from the towel--not constantly, but more often than I like. Plus, I could use tips on how to smooth the leading edge of new fibers into the twist. I find they want to stick out and be hairy in spite of wetspinning. And no, I don't have a distaff at this point, plus this flax doesn't have a 'root' end to attach to one anyway. It's like the chunks of flax were pulled out of a long roving-like form, so that there's no one point where most of the ends of the fibers in a given section are together. Holly
