Flax to Twine

It is time to describe my journey growing my own garden twine. Yep, you heard me right. I grew my own flax ( Linum usitatissimum ) and processed it all the way through to the final twine. My other half was horrified by the time consuming nature of it all. For me, that was the point. I wanted to fully appreciate what truly goes into producing a piece of humble twine, something so easy to take for granted. This journey involved growing the flax, harvesting it, drying it, retting it, drying it again, scutching it, hackling it, crudely hand 'spinning' it, and finally waxing the final pieces of twine. Now, you are probably wondering what all that means. Scutching? What is that all about? Rather than reiterating what others have already described so eloquently, I'll direct you to them instead here . Don't pay attention to what they are trying to sell you, just focus on the fabulous historic photos and little film. They are great. Now I'll give you a flavour of my ow...