flaxination

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After months of bundling up, it's comforting to look ahead to summer when I'll be skipping to the laundry line in loose linen clothes. I know, I know, I've been posting lots of winter praise, but I confess my shoulders ache with tension from bracing for the outdoors. This is my Filene's Basement $7 linen skirt, which I wore hanging laundry last summer for Peter to shoot a laundry line series on my first Holga film roll.

The linen for those summer clothes is made from flax of course. I didn't realize what a labor intensive process flax-to-linen is until I read about pulling, stacking, swingling, rippling, retting, scutching, heckling, spinning and weaving here. It's done mostly by machine now, but you can see Egyptians in these images growing and processing flax for linen. Do you suppose they ironed their linen garments? That would be an interesting frame added to these Egyptian collages.

We will be using another product made from flax when we install old fashioned linoleum squares in our bathroom. What appealed to us about linoleum (unlike vinyl) is that it is made from linseed - flax - and is natural and biodegradable.

Ingesting flax is good for you too. I take flax seed oil supplements for their high levels of lignans (chemicals that act as antioxidants) and Omega 3 fatty acids. There are wide-ranging health benefits against diabetes, heart disease, cancer and maybe Crohn's disease.

I was surprised to read about the "This Way" bike at boingboing. It's made from flax, but it looks like wood. I can just see myself riding this Big Wheel for adults on country roads to work. Nice thought actually.

I am humbled by new technologies as well as ancient processes that I know nothing about from experience. Friends like Gwen have sheered sheep and spun the fleece into wool, then knitted it into garments. She would not surprise me at all if she told me she has processed flax into linen.

Hands, hands, what are you doing? I think I live too much in my head.