I've only just read Jane Viking Swanson's message about Inishmacsaint Lace which, as Jane said, declined when the fine handspun linen thread was no longer available. That reminded me, I bought some line flax from Halcyon Fibers awhile ago and have started spinning it by hand. The blurb from Halcyon says that the flax is ready to spin but I quickly discovered that there's still a lot of tow mixed in with the long flax fibers and so I have been combing the flax with a metal comb. What I found very interesting, was that the thread I spun with the tow still mixed in, looks a lot like the commercial linen thread, with slubs. The unspun flax fibers don't have anything resembling slubs. Once I combed out the tow, my handspun thread became very smooth and shiny with no slubs. It's not hard to comb out ALL the tow, but it does reduce the quantity of spinnable flax by quite a bit. It's not expensive, one strick ( a big hank) for $5. The spinners here think I'm crazy but, as I tell them, lace doesn't use large quantities of thread like weaving does. Spinning the long flax is very difficult but I think mostly because I haven't correctly adjusted my spinning wheel for fine linen thread. Maybe I really need to use a drop spindle.
Sally Schoenberg Anchorage Alaska - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
