Written by Owen King
A project inviting people to grow a square metre of flax is exploring the relationships between ourselves, nature and clothing.
Photo credited to: Valentina Culley-Foster: photo@vculleyfoster.com Mobile: +447510126858 Website: www.vculleyfoster.com
In this job, I often find myself participating in events which, even if foreseen just a few years ago, I would have thought quite improbable. Last Friday was one of those days, when I attended a workshop on the traditional method of processing flax fibres for textiles. A niche activity, you say, imposter syndrome gremlin? Perhaps, but Sewing the Seeds proved to be a meaningful and rewarding journey.
It all started back in February, as I was wondering around the Frome Potato Day and Seed Swap—Frome’s annual celebration of the start of the growing season. There I met Carolyn Griffiths, standing in front of a table, handing out packets of seeds with a neat booklet of instructions. The seeds were flax, and Carolyn explained how the Sewing the Seeds project team were inviting people to ‘sow’ a square….’ inviting people to sew a square metre of the plants in their gardens or allotments.
Local textile resilience
Flax, is a flowering plant, linum usitatissimum, grown for its fibre and seeds. Drought resistant, and beneficial to soil structure (due to its deep roots), Flax was a key crop in medieval Britain. Linen, made from flax, was widely produced for garments and household items. However, after peaking in the 18th and 19th centuries, production declined with the advent of cheaper cotton and synthetic fibres.
Photo credited to: Valentina Culley-Foster: photo@vculleyfoster.com Mobile: +447510126858 Website: www.vculleyfoster.com
The point, Carolyn continued, is to explore the relationships between ourselves and nature by growing and learning about the production of natural fibres and textiles. The hands-on approach helps participants understand the full cycle of textile production—from plant to fabric—promoting local resilience and a regenerative alternative to fast fashion. In the process, the project fosters conversations about the links between creativity and wellbeing, the global fashion industry and our planet.
In late summer, the plants would be collectively harvested, processed and used to make a union cloth. In the meantime, there would be talks, workshops and gatherings, to build knowledge and a community around growing and textiles.
Sowing the seeds
In April, we sowed our seeds on a patch of our allotment, next to the apple tree. Finlay, our four-year-old, was ever eager to help with something new. Gently, he let the little brown pips fall from his fingers, before clumsily booting over the rest of the pot to be sown as they fell, au naturel. We watched the flax germinate and grow into slender, grass green stems. By July, the plants were at Finlay eye-level. Delicate blue petals bloomed, quickly fell and decorated the ground below. Following our instructions, in August, when the stems turned yellow, we pulled and laid them on the ground to ret. After a month or so of occasional turning, the flax was a dusty brown, pectins decomposed, ready to be dried and processed.
And so, six months later, I find myself in a remnant of our town’s storied fabric history, the old silk mill, now an arts and events space. The lantern-roofed room is bright and cold, friendly greetings echo off the whitewashed stone. For reasons soon to be explained, dunce’s hats on broomsticks are arranged in two rows in the middle of the flagstone floor. A display of linen garments, framed canvases and other flaxen goods, is laid at one end. Out in the yard, strange wooden implements with spikes and handles are arranged on trestle tables. Fellow participants—from a more diverse range of ages and genders than you might imagine—seem genuinely thrilled to be there.
Flax to fibre
Simon and Ann, from Flaxland, introduce us to the processes of producing flax fibres, using traditional techniques with strange names, and invite us to try ourselves. We learn breaking, scutching and hackling, each a stage in the transformation from spindly plant into fine, smooth threads. The fibres are combed into golden pony tails and twiddled into miniature plaits. Then we are shown how to fan the threads out and wrap them around the dunce’s hats (called distaffs), which are then placed back on the broomsticks. From here we ease and twist the threads through our fingers onto a drop spindle to produce, rather miraculously, a length of twine.
Photo credited to: Valentina Culley-Foster: photo@vculleyfoster.com Mobile: +447510126858 Website: www.vculleyfoster.com
All of this is an immensely satisfying and genuinely mindful way to spend a morning. Cares dissolve into the solid walls of the silk mill, repelled by pure concentration on the task at hand. Both I and Jane, who valiantly tries to show me how to plait my flax, share how we have found refuge in the practical and the manual during periods of anxiety. We also have a shared issue with trousers, in that neither of us conform to industry standards of body shape. Jane hopes to incorporate what she has learned into her passion for making her own clothes, using dyed flax instead of cotton for sewing.
Flax the patriarchy
For myself, I’m not sure where I might direct my new skills. The sad truth is that for gen-xers like me (I’m 45 this year), there were few male role models encouraging us to take up needlework in our youth. (Perhaps Tom Daley, with his lockdown-inspired side-hustle, is now making a significant contribution here!). And even though many of my friends were interested in fashion, it was more as a symbol of wealth and status, and nothing at all to do with creativity, heritage or sustainability. In this adolescent sense, the modern fashion industry has always been as bound up with patriarchal power structures as mining and oil.
While I may since have become more aware of the role of fast fashion—alienating us from processes of mass production that are so socially and environmentally damaging—my limited experience with textiles means I’ve done little to modify my behaviours accordingly. Until now, perhaps. Might Sewing the Seeds have sown a seed?
Life lessons
Back at home, I show the children my little plait of flax and unravel my length of twine. In the garden, we fetch our harvested bundle from the shed. The flax had already taught them much about life, growth, seasons, change, death, care, patience, and more. We pull out a few stems and lay them on my old workbench. With some improvised tools, I pass on what I have learned as best I can: how to break, to scutch and to hackle. We wonder at how we have seen the plants grow from tiny seeds into beautiful plants, and now we have a little clutch of golden threads! Soon we’ll collect all the threads from all the other people who grew flax and make cloth! “And what will we do then, Daddy?” Sow more seeds, I suppose. Spring is coming.
The Sewing the Seeds team are: Dr Lucy Gundry – curator, textile lecturer; Emily Thomas – textile artist and maker; Katrina Beattie – glass maker and e-zine producer; Jade Ogden – handweaver using regenerative materials; Jan Olive – spinner of natural fibres, forager; Carolyn Griffiths – author, handweaver.
Sewing the Seeds is supported by Future Shed, a Green and Healthy Frome initiative funded by the National Lottery Climate Action Fund.
