I just loved : "I am a big introvert with a very small social battery" - this is also me, in a nutshell, a nice cosy nutshell that can accommodate 3 spinning wheels and lots of fleeces. Another beautiful and inspiring project Jente.
As part of Jente's audience, I am glad that her "curiosity about flax won from [her] people avoidance behaviour." I too definitely relate to "I am a big introvert with a very small social battery" and people avoidance.
Luckily it was only like 20 people. Somehow in my brain it would have been a massive audience that would react to this project. (Like, who doesn't want to grow and process flax, right?!)
i use to own a flax spinning wheel. it had a little wooden bowl on it to put water in.i gave it to a young lady i showed how to spin. wish i had it now! i want to grow flax. i know it grows good here too. How lovely your ball of Flax was !! another wonderful video. thank u.
The wheel I spun the flax on is technically a wool wheel, and I moistened my fingers with saliva. Don't let a lack of a flax wheel deter you from growing flax ;)
Such a fun community project! I love linen fabric and it is just this year that I have tried spinning flax along with nettle and hemp. They are very different from wool, but it's very satisfying to use the washcloths I knitted out of my finished yarn. I cannot wait until next spring, I will be trying to plant some flax and nettle in my newly acquired garden, it will be grand!
Flax was once grown and spun just near by to me and I grew some but didn’t know how to process it. I have now found a source of the correct variety of flax seed to grow so will give it a go again as I’m now spinning. Fabulous video and a great community project. Your spun flax looked lovely Thank you.
Hello, so happy to see your video about growing flax and spinning it into linen. Such a great community project. I have just learned about another project in the nordic countries and now expanding into other european countries, to grow and process 1 square metre of flax. I think someone else has already mentioned it in the comments. Thank you for your interesting videos, I enjoy all your fibre shenanigans !!
Learning to wet spin flax on the wheel was really interesting. The best stricks of flax(long fibre vs. the short fibre-tow) we can get in Canada comes from Belgium or Germany. The province of Manitoba is the biggest producer of flax in the world but it is only grown for the seeds (food/oil source) and not for the fibre to make linen.
Yeah, Belgium is the biggest export country of flax (mostly grown in the provinces of West and East Flanders and in Wallonia), yet most Belgians do not know this.
Oh I'm glad to hear the project will be back next year! I live in Hasselt and I found out it was happening near the end of the project. I think I will be participating next year 😊
What a fun project! I have spun flax before, but it was already prepped for me. Also, thank you for your wonderful (and descriptive!) closed captions! ADHD means I sometimes miss part of a sentence, and it's nice to be able to catch up on what I missed.
I myself do rely on captions from other creators too for that reason (well, not diagnosed with ADHD, but the not catching entire sentences), so I just repay the favour :D
It’s great to see a community project like that. You spin flax dry like I do. 👍 I hate spinning it wet because my fingers turn wrinkly. It is smoother wet spun though.
The TH-camr "Engineering Knits" had a flax project which she filmed. I'd suggest you watch her videos on the topic, which show some of the mistakes to avoid as well as things that did work. If I remember correctly, Crowing Hen also has some videos on a community flax project, again, these are well worth watching.
i have a strick of flax i am intimidated to put on my distaff and start spinning, so this was perfectly timed. i would love to have community like that.
Awesome project! I do hope you will be able to participate next year. And I definitely agree that historically it is very likely flax processing would have been a community activity - just as waulking tweed was a community activity in the Scottish islands. EDIT: And I loved seeing some of your beautiful hand spun, hand knitted jumpers.
I think I will. As I said, I've made some good friendships with some of the people that participated, it will probably be a yearly occuring thing for us :D
This looks like fun! There's a group in my region (but not close to where I live) trying to bring back commercial flax production and I've been following their activities online. It's a whole different level what they're doing, mainly focused right now on selecting seed varieties and learning to use seeding and harvesting equipment. There's no linen produced commercially in the USA at all, even though flax can be easily grown in many areas and is grown for the seeds. Where I live we have dry summers and all vegetables need irrigation to grow, but flax can be grown over the winter so it dries out on its own perfectly at the beginning of summer! Maybe someday I'll get to be part of a community project like this.
Congrats on putting yourself out there and being social! I think it's interesting to hear you describe yourself as an introvert, when you're so vivacious and willing to talk to an online audience. I consider myself quite the opposite, I love talking and meeting new people but I don't have videos of myself online. I don't really have a point in this comment, I just wanted to say that I see and recognize your effort in all aspects of your vlog journey!
My fiber guild meets at a community College and is working with the groundskeepers of the college to grow and process enough flax to recreate a linsey-woolsey bedspread in the colleges collection. They also have a bunch of antique (but very serviceable) flax processing equipment. So they will grow it and rett it and we will spin and weave it!
Am in US where all linen is imported. Ridiculous. Got some linen tow and spun/knitted a top that I really like. I would love to see flax/linen in my area as lots of empty lots and need for diversity. You give me hope
I commented earlier this day but forgot to press send, I guess. 🙈 I absolutely love your community project and the idea behind that. Your video about your participation is so fascinating and interesting! Just yesterday (what a coincidence really, haha) I learned about a similar project here in Germany (1qm Lein) which is based on the swedish project 1kvm Lin. I really consider to participate next year, but I am an introvert too, so yeah... Therefore I am so glad to hear that you overcame your fears (?) and were a part of your community project. Is Welkom in Vlasselt also based on 1kvm Lin?
My brother has been seeking linen for a year or two now and it is our shared fiber interest. I wonder if I could convince him to do a flax growing project with me 🤔
What a great project! Will you participate next year, using the better flax seeds? As I’m not a fan of linen because it wrinkles so much and makes me look as if I just crawled out of the laundry basket, I never thought to spin it myself. I hate ironing with a passion and don’t weave, which means I’d have to find victims… erm… volunteers for both. I would be willing to give flax spinning a go if I knew I can make someone happy with the resulting thread though. In the mean time, as the weather is turning and I needed to move the remainders of the raw fleece I got this Spring inside the house, I took advantage of a few days off to scour it all. Just finished the last bit today. There was no way on Earth I could have convinced my daughter to have any amount of stinky fleece inside for any longer than it’d take to dunk it in a bucket of soapy water! 😂 Now I can take my sweet time combing out the VM and turning it into lovely little nests for spinning. I added sprigs of rosemary, bay leaves and lavender to keep moths at bay.
@@MijnWolden - Oooooh! Exciting! I certainly have to check it out! If they accept spinners who use e-spinners I could spin some. If I can fence off a bit of my garden to keep the Four Fabulous Fur Felons at bay I might be able to grow some flax, too. 🤩
Lineeeeeen I have bought some line flax a while ago but still haven't tried it... I need to figure out what will work with my physical limitations T.T This project looks really cool, I hope you get the chance to participate next year if you want to!
The big advantages of the not so good flax seeds was that the fibers were shorter and thus behave much more like wool fibers and could thus be easily spun on either wheel or spindle. I don't know how I would have managed the really long fibers either...
@@MijnWolden Oh I see. I was going to ask you about the feel of the flax on your fingers. How does it compare with spinning wool ? I also wonder how much flax I'd need to plant to have enough for a cardigan / dress :D
*tired noises of approval* I don’t know much about flax and linen tbh, only that our linen fabric of today tends to wrinkle easily due to our looms/methods of weaving. But it’s great otherwise and something we used a lot more historically!
I just loved : "I am a big introvert with a very small social battery" - this is also me, in a nutshell, a nice cosy nutshell that can accommodate 3 spinning wheels and lots of fleeces. Another beautiful and inspiring project Jente.
As part of Jente's audience, I am glad that her "curiosity about flax won from [her] people avoidance behaviour."
I too definitely relate to "I am a big introvert with a very small social battery" and people avoidance.
Luckily it was only like 20 people. Somehow in my brain it would have been a massive audience that would react to this project. (Like, who doesn't want to grow and process flax, right?!)
The fleeces are what make the nutshell cosy of course :D
@@MijnWolden I would have made the same assumption that loads of people want to have a go at the flax.
Love this approach to learning together in a community 😊
i use to own a flax spinning wheel. it had a little wooden bowl on it to put water in.i gave it to a young lady i showed how to spin. wish i had it now! i want to grow flax. i know it grows good here too. How lovely your ball of Flax was !! another wonderful video. thank u.
The wheel I spun the flax on is technically a wool wheel, and I moistened my fingers with saliva. Don't let a lack of a flax wheel deter you from growing flax ;)
@@MijnWolden i saw that friend! good words from u. thank u.♥
Perfect lunch break timing ❤ (for eastern time zone in the us)
And it would be perfect for dinner time break in Central European Timezone :D
Such a fun community project! I love linen fabric and it is just this year that I have tried spinning flax along with nettle and hemp. They are very different from wool, but it's very satisfying to use the washcloths I knitted out of my finished yarn. I cannot wait until next spring, I will be trying to plant some flax and nettle in my newly acquired garden, it will be grand!
Oooh handmade washcloths
you looked very satisfied and happy at the end 😉👍So it was a nice project for you
Flax was once grown and spun just near by to me and I grew some but didn’t know how to process it. I have now found a source of the correct variety of flax seed to grow so will give it a go again as I’m now spinning. Fabulous video and a great community project. Your spun flax looked lovely Thank you.
Hello, so happy to see your video about growing flax and spinning it into linen. Such a great community project. I have just learned about another project in the nordic countries and now expanding into other european countries, to grow and process 1 square metre of flax. I think someone else has already mentioned it in the comments. Thank you for your interesting videos, I enjoy all your fibre shenanigans !!
such a cool community project! :D
Learning to wet spin flax on the wheel was really interesting. The best stricks of flax(long fibre vs. the short fibre-tow) we can get in Canada comes from Belgium or Germany. The province of Manitoba is the biggest producer of flax in the world but it is only grown for the seeds (food/oil source) and not for the fibre to make linen.
Yeah, Belgium is the biggest export country of flax (mostly grown in the provinces of West and East Flanders and in Wallonia), yet most Belgians do not know this.
What a fun project! Loved this one! 😊
What a great idea!! And you made it look so easy. You have given me ideas 🤔😁🥰👍🏻🫶🏻
It's not as hard as it seems, but probably less easy than I make it seem haha
Oh I'm glad to hear the project will be back next year! I live in Hasselt and I found out it was happening near the end of the project. I think I will be participating next year 😊
Keep an eye on Nomad City's socials, I'd say :D
Oh my gosh, what an amazing project!!! 😍
What a great project!
I learn spin flax this year and it's so cool. Thank you for your video
Thank you!
What a fun project! I have spun flax before, but it was already prepped for me.
Also, thank you for your wonderful (and descriptive!) closed captions! ADHD means I sometimes miss part of a sentence, and it's nice to be able to catch up on what I missed.
I myself do rely on captions from other creators too for that reason (well, not diagnosed with ADHD, but the not catching entire sentences), so I just repay the favour :D
that was awesome
It’s great to see a community project like that. You spin flax dry like I do. 👍 I hate spinning it wet because my fingers turn wrinkly. It is smoother wet spun though.
I did wet my fingers in my mouth every now and then
Very interesting!!!
Yay er zijn nog Belgen met gelijkaardige interessen als ik. Super leuk om te zien!
Sowieso, en je vindt ze allemaal terug op de fiberfestivals in Nederland ;)
I might try a small patch. Looked like a great learning experiment. And I have a lot of nettles in my area to try as well
The TH-camr "Engineering Knits" had a flax project which she filmed. I'd suggest you watch her videos on the topic, which show some of the mistakes to avoid as well as things that did work.
If I remember correctly, Crowing Hen also has some videos on a community flax project, again, these are well worth watching.
I want to try nettles and hops too :)
i have a strick of flax i am intimidated to put on my distaff and start spinning, so this was perfectly timed. i would love to have community like that.
Maybe there is a similar project nearby?
Awesome project! I do hope you will be able to participate next year.
And I definitely agree that historically it is very likely flax processing would have been a community activity - just as waulking tweed was a community activity in the Scottish islands.
EDIT: And I loved seeing some of your beautiful hand spun, hand knitted jumpers.
I think I will. As I said, I've made some good friendships with some of the people that participated, it will probably be a yearly occuring thing for us :D
What a fun project.
Fun!
I’m so impressed at the time investment in this video!
Tbh, sometimes these kind of videos are easier than the ones filmed over 1 week :)
This looks like fun! There's a group in my region (but not close to where I live) trying to bring back commercial flax production and I've been following their activities online. It's a whole different level what they're doing, mainly focused right now on selecting seed varieties and learning to use seeding and harvesting equipment. There's no linen produced commercially in the USA at all, even though flax can be easily grown in many areas and is grown for the seeds. Where I live we have dry summers and all vegetables need irrigation to grow, but flax can be grown over the winter so it dries out on its own perfectly at the beginning of summer! Maybe someday I'll get to be part of a community project like this.
I hope you'll be able to one day :)
Congrats on putting yourself out there and being social! I think it's interesting to hear you describe yourself as an introvert, when you're so vivacious and willing to talk to an online audience. I consider myself quite the opposite, I love talking and meeting new people but I don't have videos of myself online. I don't really have a point in this comment, I just wanted to say that I see and recognize your effort in all aspects of your vlog journey!
The thing is that while I'm an introvert, I'm not shy. Being around people just makes me immensely tired physically and emotionally.
What fun! I would have loved to participate if I were near.
This kind of project "1square meter of flax" is known in quite a bit of countries, maybe also near you?
So jealous. This looks like a lot of fun.
I don't know where you are located, but there are projects like this in many countries, maybe there is one close to you
@@MijnWolden After watching your video I did a little bing search and found my relatively local fibershed. Can't wait to go to my first event.
I love this so much! I really need to find out if there is something like this in my neighborhood.
I know there is a 1m2 vlas project in the Netherlands, I don't know exactly where though
My fiber guild meets at a community College and is working with the groundskeepers of the college to grow and process enough flax to recreate a linsey-woolsey bedspread in the colleges collection. They also have a bunch of antique (but very serviceable) flax processing equipment. So they will grow it and rett it and we will spin and weave it!
A bedspread! That's quite ambitious!
Such a cool thing to do! I hope you will get a chance to spin some of next year’s longer staple flax, when it is grown. harpingJanet
I hope so too
I've been interested in a flax project since I can't keep sheep in my back yard. I'll get on to it next year.. maybe.
Get the right seeds! :D
Am in US where all linen is imported. Ridiculous. Got some linen tow and spun/knitted a top that I really like. I would love to see flax/linen in my area as lots of empty lots and need for diversity. You give me hope
(and probably imported from Belgium hehe)
I commented earlier this day but forgot to press send, I guess. 🙈
I absolutely love your community project and the idea behind that. Your video about your participation is so fascinating and interesting!
Just yesterday (what a coincidence really, haha) I learned about a similar project here in Germany (1qm Lein) which is based on the swedish project 1kvm Lin. I really consider to participate next year, but I am an introvert too, so yeah... Therefore I am so glad to hear that you overcame your fears (?) and were a part of your community project. Is Welkom in Vlasselt also based on 1kvm Lin?
It wasn't really based on it, in the sense that they only learned about it after they had launched their project, but it is very similar indeed :)
My brother has been seeking linen for a year or two now and it is our shared fiber interest. I wonder if I could convince him to do a flax growing project with me 🤔
It's easier if you're not alone ;)
What a great project! Will you participate next year, using the better flax seeds?
As I’m not a fan of linen because it wrinkles so much and makes me look as if I just crawled out of the laundry basket, I never thought to spin it myself. I hate ironing with a passion and don’t weave, which means I’d have to find victims… erm… volunteers for both.
I would be willing to give flax spinning a go if I knew I can make someone happy with the resulting thread though.
In the mean time, as the weather is turning and I needed to move the remainders of the raw fleece I got this Spring inside the house, I took advantage of a few days off to scour it all. Just finished the last bit today. There was no way on Earth I could have convinced my daughter to have any amount of stinky fleece inside for any longer than it’d take to dunk it in a bucket of soapy water! 😂
Now I can take my sweet time combing out the VM and turning it into lovely little nests for spinning. I added sprigs of rosemary, bay leaves and lavender to keep moths at bay.
I would love to participate again next year. Next year it should be Belgium-wide, with the help of the museum, so maybe a hint for you too? ;)
@@MijnWolden - Oooooh! Exciting! I certainly have to check it out! If they accept spinners who use e-spinners I could spin some. If I can fence off a bit of my garden to keep the Four Fabulous Fur Felons at bay I might be able to grow some flax, too. 🤩
Lineeeeeen
I have bought some line flax a while ago but still haven't tried it... I need to figure out what will work with my physical limitations T.T
This project looks really cool, I hope you get the chance to participate next year if you want to!
The big advantages of the not so good flax seeds was that the fibers were shorter and thus behave much more like wool fibers and could thus be easily spun on either wheel or spindle. I don't know how I would have managed the really long fibers either...
Also, I have a kg of flax stricks that I got from a guy in Egypt to practice with. So far I've made exceptional baling twine! 😂😂😂
Always useful :D
Did you use a pot of water to keep the flax moist as you spun or was the weather damp enough already?
I wet my fingers with saliva (and the weather was rather damp)
@@MijnWolden Oh I see. I was going to ask you about the feel of the flax on your fingers. How does it compare with spinning wool ?
I also wonder how much flax I'd need to plant to have enough for a cardigan / dress :D
*tired noises of approval*
I don’t know much about flax and linen tbh, only that our linen fabric of today tends to wrinkle easily due to our looms/methods of weaving. But it’s great otherwise and something we used a lot more historically!
oooh I didn't know it was because of our looms