Bloody ‘ell!

“What’s a bloody L, Mummy?” This is a direct quote of myself as a young child–or perhaps one of my sisters, because sometimes those memories are blurry. The backstory here is that I grew up in London in the 1970s. A family friend used the phrase “bloody hell” to express exasperation and dismay, which translated through his accent and my young ears to “bloody ‘ell”. Was it the letter L that had somehow become bloody, and if so how? Was it bad? Why? And why would you bring it up in conversation if it was so bad? Parsing grown-up-speak isn’t easy.

Now I will get to the point: blood is what my blog post is about. And also my feelings about it, as expressed by this old-fashioned swear. Exasperation, dismay, despair. An existential questioning… What am I doing? I can’t believe I’m doing this. Is it doing any good? Continue reading “Bloody ‘ell!” →

Pennyroyal Oil Is Not a Deterrent

The title about sums it up. I wondered if a strong-smelling essential oil would keep away my flax-chewer. My mother uses peppermint oil to discourage mice from chewing the insulation in the stove at our family’s cabin when we close it up for the winter. I didn’t have any peppermint on-hand Sunday morning, but I did have pennyroyal oil.

I saturated some strips of row cover:

pennyroyal oil on strips

Then I tied them to bamboo stakes:

strip tied to stake

Then I stuck them inside the beds so the cloth hung near ground level:

stake in position

Continue reading “Pennyroyal Oil Is Not a Deterrent” →

Something is Chewing my Flax

Something is chewing my flax. I am pretty worried. This happened last year and I really do not want to repeat the disaster. Here’s the evidence:

It fells a stalk. Some of the stalks are chewed on an angle, but some are chewed straight across:

sawed stalk

Then it chews the stalk into little pieces:

June 14 chewed stems close

June 14 chewed stems

It leaves a pile of chewed up stalks on the ground:

debris on ground

 

Planting Flax 2016

In this post I will show some photos of the beds I dug for planting flax this year, and some photos that reflect my desperation as I waited for signs that the seeds were actually germinating!

I decided to focus on 6 types this season. I selected the ones that had the tallest height at harvest last summer. This doesn’t account for branching habit, days to first flower, signs of disease, or any number of other relevant factors in selecting fiber flax seed. On the other hand, it’s straightforward and uses the data at my disposal, so I feel OK about it. Continue reading “Planting Flax 2016” →

Winnowing and Wine Bottles

OK, so I said earlier that I am bad at winnowing. This is still mostly true. I also said that on the next sunny weekend day I would use the wine bottle method to get the seeds off my flax in an efficient way. This is only a bit true, but it’s “truthy” in a way that can be explained with details and isn’t a lie.

This post is about how I spent a significant portion of April vacation removing the seeds from six varieties of flax from last summer, and got it cleaned up for planting. I know that ostensibly my blog is about dyeing, but I have been flax-obsessed lately. You might have noticed the flaxy-flaxy-flax-flax theme…. So, yeah. Flax. Again. Continue reading “Winnowing and Wine Bottles” →

Low Humidity! April Vacation!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you want to process flax, you’d better do it while the humidity is low. I am not entirely positive why this is so, but I know from experience that it is true. If you try to break or scutch your flax while it’s humid, the stalks just bend and the shives cling to the fibers for dear life. You do not hear the gratifying crackling, snapping sounds that should accompany such activities. It is arduous and futile. Well, maybe not futile, but it’s certainly a lot easier and more successful when the humidity is low.

I suspect that this is related to one of the properties of linen that make it a desirable fabric. Flax fibers are hydrophilic, meaning that they absorb water easily. I am sure someone has done research on how being damp also makes flax want to stick to itself. If you know of good resources on this, shoot me an email.

For the past several days here in western Massachusetts, we have had very, very low humidity. Well, low for Massachusetts. It’s been anywhere from 30-50% in the morning, dropping to about 18% in the afternoon. The weather has also been bright, sunny and warm. And best of all, it is April vacation! So, I have had time to sit and process flax! Everything I’m working on this week is the variety Marilyn, though I’m chipping away at bundles from various years. Continue reading “Low Humidity! April Vacation!” →

Magnification Technology Mach 2

Apparently one of the unforeseen functions of my blog is to document the decline in my vision over the decade of my forties. I have written about it here and here. Despite my attempts to be philosophical about it, I still find it annoying (at best) and unsettling (at worst) that I can’t see as well as I used to. Fortunately, magnification technologies come to my rescue at opportune moments. So honestly I cannot complain. Here’s a great example of such a rescue.

I’ve been stripping the seed bolls off of my flax from last summer, and sifting through debris for individual seeds. Flax seeds are shiny and glossy, and they stand out amidst the beautiful but comparatively lusterless dried leaves, flowers, and other bits of plant debris. Well, they stand out a *bit*. They do not stand out a *lot*. The chaff and other debris are highly textured and multicolored, and even glossy, shiny seeds can get lost in the mix. Especially with my not-so-awesome eyesight. The other day I was stripping the seeds off of the variety called Ariane. I’d removed all the seed bolls from the plants. Yay. However, I had a huge pile of debris to sift through with loose seeds mixed in. Sigh. Time to double down. Continue reading “Magnification Technology Mach 2” →

Or, If it’s April It’s Time for Snow

On Sunday morning after I took all the photos for my last post, I woke up to this snowy scene:

Sunday snow scene

It was just a dusting, but it came along with some much colder temperatures. Maybe it isn’t really spring? Here’s another view of the back yard yesterday morning, including kitty paw prints:

paw prints in the snow

And here’s a view of the woods a bit later in the day when the sun came out. It’s like spring in the foreground where the sun melted the snow, and winter in the woods where it was shady:

winter woods

This morning, Monday, we had snow for real:

van under snow

So, I am a bit less anxious about the fact that I haven’t planted my flax yet!

If It’s April It Must Be Time to Plant Flax

It is, in fact, April. No foolin’. I am excited that it’s spring but, as usual, I’m ill prepared. Even though we had a mild winter here in terms of temperatures and snowfall, it was still winter. And I was still surprised by the sudden acceleration of the hours of daylight around the spring equinox. Winter winter winter winter winter, then, ta da, spring!

The other day I read on a blog post from one of the Vävstuga students that they had planted flax as part of the Väv Immersion class. Tip: hit the back button to get back to my post from these links. (12/30/2023 Edited: Updated Väv Immersion link.)

What? I felt a sudden panic. I am not ready to plant. Continue reading “If It’s April It Must Be Time to Plant Flax” →

FIBERuary in Western Massachusetts

In case you haven’t heard, it’s FIBERuary here in Western Massachusetts! Carole Adams, of Whispering Pines Fiber and Herb Farm in Colrain, came up with the idea as a way to promote local fiber farmers. She was inspired by an initiative in the UK called Wovember which encouraged people to think more deeply about where wool comes from, to celebrate the incredible diversity of British wool, to wear 100% woolen garments, and to knit with British wool. (12/30/2023 Edited: It is with great sadness that I must share that Carole Adams died in 2022. She was my first spinning teacher in 1999, and a continual inspiration in my fiber world.) Continue reading “FIBERuary in Western Massachusetts” →