Flax the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it (sorry!)

Having grown up with Time Team on the TV I would regularly see one of the team create something from the period they were excavating goodies from.  This usually involved making something sharp and awesome like a flint axe or arrowhead, or melting something to make a dangerous (and therefore exciting) knife/axe/pointy thing.  Occasionally they'd weave something, which I thought was crap.

After Time Team came Ray Mears. By this time I was older, more mature and less interested in the molten iron/stabby tools and I found that the existence in harmony with nature was of equal interest.  After seeing an episode of Ray Mears Bushcraft where he made cordage (string, to most people) out of something unexpected like a goose's eyelashes, spider silk or stinging nettles I was again intrigued as to how a functional tool can be manufactured out of something that just happens to grow out of the ground (or off the eye-lid of a goose).

Using the same technique that Mr Ray Mears very kindly shared I turned something that can't easily be recycled into something useful;

This is bailing twine (nylon, sadly), that is used for bailing up hay/straw.  The local riding school cuts it off the bails and throws it away.  By splitting the cut-off pieces into two strands and splicing in more sections, it's possible to make a perfectly useable, thin rope from what would otherwise become waste.  I don't know the name of the technique, but you twist one strand away from your body, then rotate both strands so your first strand becomes the bottom strand. Repeat until you have enough rope. The nylon's a little tough on the thumbs, but it's a small price to pay really.

Moving on from the nylon rope idea I thought I'd have a crack at growing something that may then be processed into natural fibres. Flax. I would have preferred hemp, but you need a licence to grow it, despite the industrial version having just a tiny amount of THC when compared to the other stuff.

Having done no research this was going to be a hap-hazard bumble through the process of growing flax for fibre production.  It's pretty much all guesswork.

First off, I decided to do this in April I think.  I don't know if that's a good time to plant things, so to help the seeds germinate I sandwiched them between wet paper towels and left them on a windowsill.  My thinking was that if I could get them to sprout in the paper I could then just lay that onto some soil and cover it over without having to fiddle too much.

Germinated flax seeds.

Not very neatly sewn!

I wasn't expecting a large crop for this experiment.

So, sprouting seeds planted I covered them over with compost and watered them when it started to look like it was about to dry on the surface.  That's an old barbecue by the way, a friend left it in my garden about 5 years ago and it's now been re-purposed.

Some green finally showing through.

The small green pairs of leaves grew in size and in number and then one morning my crop had halved. I can only assume a mouse had found my mini plantation and helped itself to the shoots. If I look at it as sharing, I don't get mad.

Fast forward a number of weeks (I didn't count how many. I should have!) and the small shoots had turned into these long, thin whips.  At this stage I wasn't sure that what I even had was flax because I'd actually planted linseed. Turns out they're the same thing. As soon as the flowers popped out I googled it and confirmed that what I had was definitely flax. Or linseed.  If you look closely at the picture on the right you can see a blue flower amongst the white. Cue even more confusion.

Flowers bloom then make way for the seed pods.  They're about the size of a pea and have little striations coming from (or going to?) the centre.  At this point I thought I'd better find out when would be a good time to harvest the fibres and luckily, it was about now! As the leaves lower down the stem start to turn yellow the plant is in a transitional phase and timing is important in order to get the kind of fibre you want. Crop too early and the fibres don't have time to fully establish, crop too late and the fibre becomes very coarse.  I wasn't interested in harvesting the seeds so I've harvested just before the pods change colour and the lower leaves are yellowing. You might be able to see it on the picture above, right.

It would seem that getting the fibre is harder than I imagined. YouTube taught me all kinds of new words and introduced me to lots of specialised looking wooden tools with nails stuck in them.  I'm going to try and do it all by hand at first, no tools. I think I'll be able to manipulate the woody stem away from the fibres just by rolling and bending the stalks.  If that fails, I'll improvise a tool of some sort. 

I actually ended up with a larger crop than expected, especially considering I had no idea what I was doing and the fact that mice eat flax seedlings. 

Currently the crop is drying in the sun, after which I think I submerge it in water for a few days. After that I let it dry fully and I can then begin teasing out the fibres.  What I hope to with them once I have them processed is turn them into a basic cordage and from that I'll make a bracelet for myself and my girlfriend.