Adele
I think that all of your thoughts are just about spot on! Although the
species is Linum Usitatissimum there must be hundreds of varieties
which combined with different growing conditions, retting and spinning
techniques mean that some linen fibres are very coarse whilst others
are gossamer fine - and machinery doesn't have the skills required to
spin the finest!
My 2 penn'th agreeing with your 2 cents worth!
Brenda
On 3 Oct 2005, at 03:23, Adele Shaak wrote:
I've heard a number of stories about why we don't have fine flax, and
after hearing them all, this is my 2 cents' worth:
1. A few years ago in the OIDFA bulletin (I think) there was an
article on fine linen thread from someone whose family has been in the
linen-thread production business for a few generations. He said that,
whereas an experienced flax handspinner could produce a thread with as
few as 8 individual fibres, the best machines couldn't do it with
fewer than 40 fibres. I assume that's due to the lighter tension,
greater care, and individual attention to the fibre you would get from
an experienced handspinner.
2. Lots of people claim that there was some mysterious variety of
special flax that died out - and lots of people claim there never was
and it never did. I think that it is likely that makers of
machine-made thread got tired of being asked why they couldn't make
fine thread, and the mysterious plant extinction was a good story that
got them off the hook. I'm suspicious that way ;-)
3. I've heard that the plants that were intended to produce fine
threads were deliberately crowded in sowing so they grew tall and thin
as the plant stretched up to find some sunlight. These particular
plants were then harvested by pulling them up by the roots so that the
maximum length of processed fibre was obtained.
4. I've read an article from the 17th century, wherein an Englishman
attempted to figure out how the Dutch got such fine flax thread, and
he reported that the unspun flax was kept for years, and re-combed
every year, until the remaining fibre was "as fine as baby's hair".
Perhaps this patience and careful selection is a factor.
5. It is well known that the temperatures in northern Europe were for
some centuries cooler than they are now. Plants grown in cooler
conditions may produce finer threads, just as tree rings are thinner
when the year is cool. I'm not sure; it's just a thought.
In conclusion - for what it's worth, I think the fineness of linen
thread was more likely the result of careful hand-raising,
hand-processing, and hand-spinning, and climate conditions, than it
was the result of having some special variety of flax.
Again, my 2 cents.
Adele
North Vancouver, BC
(west coast of Canada)
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Brenda
http://paternoster.orpheusweb.co.uk/
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