18th CENTURY CLOTHING: Flax to Linen (Depreciation Lands Museum) and Bobbin Lace (Applegate School of Needlework)
One of the history sites that I enjoy doing living history demonstrations at is the Depreciation Lands Museum in Allison Park, PA. If you enjoy the idea of a small village that takes you back to another time and place, this is a great one to visit!
This past August, the DLM had a Flax to Linen event, demonstrating how linen is made from a crop (or many crops) of flax.
The process of flax to linen is a rather lengthy and somewhat complicated process, but first here is a little on the history.
The use of flax to linen was widely used in the Northern parts of early America, as the climate was much more favorable to this plant as opposed to cotton. Though flax has been with humankind long before Europeans' discovery of the Western Hemisphere.
Linum angostifolium (which means "of greatest use") is the wild ancestor of flax and can be found anywhere from the Black Sea and extending all the way to the Canary Islands. Evidence of its growth and use dates back to fifth millennium BC in Mesopotamia and Egypt, making it the oldest cultivated fiber plant. Many historians believe that flax was introduced into the British Isles by the Romans. Laws were enacted in the 16th century requiring a quarter of an acre of flax be planted for every sixty acres under cultivation.
While there are many advantages to flax, but its disadvantages involve the amount of labor required for turning the flax plant into linen.
First, there is the planting process. Flax needs a deep, rich soil, and can depletes the nutrients from the soil it is planted in. During the early days, that meant it could only be raised on newly-cleared ground. After two or three years of a flax crop, a farmer would then use that land for a less nutritionally demanding crop, like wheat. After planting, of course, comes growing. Plowing would take place in November, February, and March. April was when flaxseeds were sown and a final harrowing would take place. Weeding is also unnecessary if flax is sown and spaced properly.
When it comes to harvesting, flax takes about a hundred days to mature. It is pulled from the ground by the roots and left to dry for a few days. It can also be stored for the following year if time is not of an essence. Processing flax can also be quite labor intensive. The next steps are rippling (when the seeds are separated from the long, silky inner fibers), retting (unwanted fibers are loosened and decomposed), drying, scutching (freeing the linen fiber from the boon with a blunt, wooden knife), and finally hackling, when the fiber is drawn through a series of metal combs to remove the last of the boon and short fibers.
When the fibers are spun into a thread, they can go on to be used for sewing, knitting, weaving, and more.
The following is a couple more photos from the Depreciation Lands Museum's Flax to Linen event!
Another fiber related skill that I have started to explore is Bobbin Lace, or 'tatting.'
I always love stopping in at the Applegate's School of Needlework tent at Fort Henry Days in between the performance times of the early folk music group that I'm in.
This year (on Labor Day Weekend in September of 2021), I had the opportunity to actually try some Bobbin lacing at their tent and it sparked my interest even more.
Bobbin Lacing Tools at Applegate School of Needlework
This sparked my interest even more and Applegate School of Needlework typically offers classes in this skill, which I hope to take in January of 2022. Of course if that ends up happening, I will be sharing the experience here.
Handmade lace was seen as being of great importance in fashion from the 16th and into the 20th centuries. The first written mention of bobbin laces is recorded in 1536 with their origins in Venice. Toward the end of the 16th century, this method became more widely used in fashion.
More information on Flax to Linen and Bobbin Lace is below, and of course, I'll be sharing more of my experience with lacemaking if these classes resume in January.
https://www.britannica.com/art/bobbin-lace
And also, check out the websites of the Depreciation Lands Museum and Applegate School of Needlwork.
Applegate's School of Needlework
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