Homegrown linen Dishcloth
When I started this blog as well as chosen the name, I was truly thrilled about the bit patch of flax I grew in my yard. then we moved, I lost my good bit garden patch, life happened, as well as I didn’t do much with the flax. It’s been sitting in my shed for the last three years, however thankfully flax straw keeps just fine.
I lastly got around to retting the flax this past summer. I put it in water, weighed it down, as well as let it sit for a few days. I didn’t exchange any type of of the water, so it got quite disgusting! I was scared I’d retted it as well long, because the fibers seemed to be breaking off at the root ends, however I later figured out they were under retted overall. I believe I requirement to suspend them with the root ends out of the water for even more retting. thankfully you can begin as well as stop retting any type of number of times, so I can rett them some much more later.
I pulled out a few of the thicker-stalked bundles, because they rett quicker than the thin stalks. I don’t have any type of flax processing tools yet, so I improvised. I stomped on the flax to break it, tried scutching with a scrap of wood over the edge of my picnic table, as well as heckled with a sharp directed metal clean cleaning comb as well as a canine comb.
Since my flax wasn’t retted enough, I had to deal with it quite approximately to separate the fibers. I didn’t get any type of truly long fibers, because they all broke off. I provided up after three or four bundles, however I combed with the tow to pick out the longest fibers as well as got a good sized handful of tow fibers. I got a few longer fibers that were about a foot as well as a half long.
I spun the shorter fibers by just grabbing a little handful as well as spinning from the end. I spread out the longer fibers on a towel with the ends peeking out, rolled it up loosely, as well as spun the fibers from the roll. This technique is explained in the book Handspinning Flax.
I have an older version of the all-metal Columbine spinning wheel. I purchased a high speed pulley for it, which was referred to as “experimental”, however after fiddling with it for a while, I chose it doesn’t work. I couldn’t get it to take up the yarn at all. I changed back to the routine pulley as well as got my flax spun into fine yarn.
After reading some recipes for scouring flax, I realized I already had the ideal detergent – Charlies Soap powdered laundry detergent. I might go on permanently about exactly how fantastic this detergent is. I found it when I was fabric diapering my kids, as well as now I will never utilize any type of other detergent as long as they keep making this stuff. It does what laundry detergent is expected to – cleans your clothes, then laundries out. What a radical idea, huh? When I feel other people’s clothes, they feel heavy as well as waxy from all of the detergent as well as dryer sheet residue. a number of members of my household with sensitive skin get rashes from using clothes washed in other detergent, because many detergents these days are developed to leave residue in your clothes so dyes, brighteners, scent, softeners, as well as other toxic stuff are left on the fabric. OK, I’ll stop gushing about my laundry detergent now. Maybe.
I plied my yarn, then boiled it with some Charlies Soap powdered detergent for a couple of hours. I ended up with 44 lawns of yarn.
I wished to make something little that I would really utilize regularly, so I knitted the yarn into a dishcloth utilizing this pattern. The non-stretchy linen yarn was extremely challenging to knit with, so next time I have some linen yarn I’ll try crocheting instead.
The dishcloth was expected to be square, however my yarn thickness as well as tension varied, so it came out skewed. The shape reminds me of a stingray. It can go swimming in my kitchen area sink.
So, the concern is, will I do a much better task keeping up with washing the dishes now that I have this beautiful dishcloth to use?
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