One of the best parts of finishing a big project is writing the acknowledgements. It’s a quiet moment to reflect on the people, learning, and support that made everything possible.

First of all, I’m grateful for the support of the Arts Council England during 2024. Their backing allowed me to improve my practical textile skills, develop collaborations, and deepen my understanding of how to coordinate community-based projects.

I’m also hugely thankful to all my former Nettler's who joined Let’s Grow Flax in 2023. You embraced the idea of growing flax with such care and commitment, and it showed in the results. I’m proud to share that our group produced 1.4 kg of long fibre – a yield in line with those reported by Flaxland UK, a pioneering flax farm in Somerset.

Our group also took part in several workshops, allowing us to both revive and conserve traditional textile skills. At the same time, we laid the foundations for something new – a glimpse into a more sustainable textile future, where bioregional networks connect growers, artisans, and small-scale makers. Thank you to everyone who donated flax to the project, helping us create a high-impact regenerative fashion item: a pair of locally made linen denim jeans.

In 2024, I had the joy of turning our communal flax into those jeans – and I couldn’t have done it without my collaborators.

Ginny’s support in setting up the Let’s Grow Flax group in 2023 was invaluable. Her dye workshop in 2024 was great fun, and she also took on much of the organising for the Community Day at Farnham Museum in September. On top of all that, she generously donated some of her own handspun yarn to the project.

Rowan Hunt, denim researcher and fellow member of Let’s Grow Flax, generously shared his knowledge and pointed me towards new areas for research.

Amanda Hannaford not only guided me patiently from inch-worm spinning to long-draw, but also came to the rescue when we ran short of warp yarn. On very short notice, she handspun a strong, beautiful yarn that wove like a dream.

The collaboration with the pioneering Fantasy Fibre Mill was a steep learning curve for all of us. Both the quality of the fibre and the open-access scutching tool improved hugely during 2024. Although we ended up with less yarn than projected, the progress we made and leaning curve we covered was well worth it.

Thanks to Amanda’s excellent teaching, I was able to handspin most of the warp myself – a yarn that needs to be much stronger than the weft. This meant I didn’t have time to process more fibre, so I’m especially grateful to Soma and Ann from Flaxland, who stepped in and kindly processed and scutched more locally grown flax at short notice. This made it possible to finish the sampling and the jeans themselves.

We were lucky to be able to share our flax journey at RRLLM, Farnham Museum, and the Weald & Downland Museum, with both fellow craftspeople and the wider public.

Taking part in Fashion on Earth was a real highlight. It felt grounding to be among so many thoughtful garments, each created with care for the planet, under the Gaia exhibition.

Flaxland UK supported the project on very short notice by scutching some of their UK grown flax and sending it within a week, when our locally grown fibre ran short. Their flax fibre was also as a control fibre for our fibre and the first spinning samples also were made with Flaxland UK flax. 

And finally, a big thank you to my fellow comrade in flax and nettles, my toolmaker, last-minute duck weaver, and husband – Martin. I couldn’t have done this without his patience, support, and hands-on help.

These jeans bring together old craft and new approaches, the love of flax from private gardeners and growers, skilled artisans, and emerging technology. 100% biodegradable, and grown and made within 50 miles.

We are absolutely delighted to return to the Museum of Farnham, Surrey, to share our Garden to Garment journey, and our locally grown Linen Denim Jeans with the public,

We enjoyed the generous support of the museum 2023 for our Community Flax Day. A day that brought people together in the museum gardens to explore the fascinating journey of growing, processing, and using flax.

Then, in 2024, we gathered again on September 29th for the celebration of the first length of our communally grown Linen Cloth. Exhibits paid tribute to the heritage of linen and its sustainable potential for the future. It showed the artistic side of our members as well as traditional textile skills like fibre processing, spinning, weaving and naturally dyeing. 

Now, in 2025, we are thrilled to present Threads of Nature, an exhibition that brings together the story of our community, the story of flax as sustainable fibre source, and the culmination of theses stories: our communally grown jeans.

A Celebration of Flax and Community

This exhibition illustrates the journey of flax from seed to fabric, and the hands-on involvement of our dedicated community. Through a series of posters, visitors will be able to trace our background, our location, and the artistic and practical processes behind flax growing. The exhibition does not simply tell a story—it displays tangible evidence of our work: the tools, the textiles, and the collective spirit that made it all happen.

On display at the Threads of Nature will also be our DIY tools, which have been instrumental in processing flax into fibre. These tools, designed and built within our community, not only enhanced the processing power of the group, they are an invitation to others to get involved. The free plans for making your own flax-processing tools will be displayed, ensuring that our knowledge and skills will continue to spread.

Materials, Textiles, and Craftsmanship

Beyond the tools and educational displays, visitors will be able to see some of the materials that have played a crucial role in our project. The exhibition features dyed yarn, along with samples of the natural dye stuffs that have been used to colour our flax fibres. These foraged dyes materials are a freely available resources to those who know how to use them. Despite being an ancient technology, their use for the weft of the jeans the beauty of plant-based colours, and that they are perfectly fine to be used on a contemporary fashion garment. Plus, they reinforce our commitment to environmentally friendly textile practices.

A particularly special element of the exhibition is the handcrafted buttons made by Philip Hamilton, a wonderful detail that brings attention to the finer aspects of textile design. The exhibition as a whole aims to reflect the thought, care, and creativity that go into every stage of flax processing and linen production.

The Culmination: Communally Grown Jeans

At the heart of Threads of Nature is the final result of our flax-growing efforts—jeans made from the linen that we, as a community, have cultivated. This garment represents more than just an end product; it is a testament to the power of collaborative, sustainable textile production. Every thread woven into these jeans carries the story of the people who grew the flax, processed the fibre, spun the yarn, and stitched the fabric. It is a symbol of what is possible when we come together with a shared vision.

Visit the Exhibition

We invite you to visit Threads of Nature: Community Flax Growing at the Museum of Farnham. The exhibition runs from Wednesday, March 26, to Saturday, July 5, 2025, and is open from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM (Wednesday to Saturday). Entry is free, though a £3 donation is recommended to support the museum’s work. This is an exhibition for all ages, offering an inspiring insight into the world of sustainable textiles.

Join us in celebrating the beauty of flax, the ingenuity of craft, and the strength of community. We look forward to sharing this journey with you!

PS Please note the between May 16th & 17th, the jeans will be on a short excursion to be part of the De-fashion Dorset. 

It was so very special to be able to be part of the ‘Fashion On Earth’ event in Bristol, in November 2024. Being surrounded by so many makers with similar aims was highly inspiring. Plus, I was over the moon when the organisers, The Sustainable Fashion Week, referred to our jeans as the core piece of the garment exhibition.

The motivation behind our jeans, the community-driven, local ethos, and our focus on regenerative making seems to resonated with the organisers reminder about the current state of textiles:

We are critically disconnected from our clothing, how it is made, its natural source, and the many hands each garment passes through before it reaches us. All the resources that cloth our bodies come from this Earth, and how we choose to care for and use these resources plays a significant role in planetary health.

Our jeans directly address these issues by reconnecting people with the origins of their garments and demonstrating the power of local textile practices.

Amazingly, we were positioned next to the GOTS stall. Our stall neighbours were delighted by our approach, especially the fact that we used GOTS-certified Tencel thread, dyed with kitchen waste, e.g. onion skins. We now have the official GOTS sticker which we can proudly add to our thread 😊.

We set up early in the day, to make sure not to interrupt services at the cathedral. As a result, we were busy between service times talking to the pubic about flax and its potential to make linen. People enjoyed processing single stalks of flax and turning the resulting fibres into cordage. The responses and flax love was incredible, with so many people keen to learn more about the sustainable techniques behind the jeans, all while being surrounded by the stunning exhibition.

The ethos of the Gaia exhibition provided the perfect backdrop for our jeans. Luke Jerram’s Gaia installation—a large-scale depiction of the Earth—served as a reminder of the interconnectedness of all life on this planet. This powerful visual reinforced the message that all the resources we consume, including the clothing we wear, have a significant impact on planetary health.

Linen Workwear (dare we call it Denim?)

During one of our early calls about the collaboration between Fantasy Fibre Mill and the Let’s Grow Flax project, I remember really connecting with Brigitte over the possibility of creating linen workwear. In this context, by workwear we don’t mean the technical kind that might be worn by firefighters or construction workers, or uniforms (for schools or hotels or aviation). We mean the kind that is in fact casual everyday wear, as popularised by brands like Carhartt and Dickies. The clothes are (should be) hardwearing, with simple functional cuts, and yet just enough flair to make you feel ready for the day. Historically, this kind of clothing has its origins in the garments worn by “labourers” - whether that be on a farm, in a mine, or in a factory. These garments were overwhelmingly made from a fabric called denim, which is why workwear and denim have become almost synonymous. However, (and without wanting to get into sticky discussions about what is and isn’t denim), “blue collar” (bleu de travail) chore jackets are a classic example of workwear that isn’t denim.


In the world as it is today (2024), workwear is made from cotton (or poly-cotton) and so is denim. This is because cotton dominates the natural fibre market, and it is what the consumer expects. However, this world domination of cotton is only fairly recent - look back 250 years (pre-industrial revolution), and most clothing worn in the UK would have been made from wool, linen or hemp (or even nettles). In fact, linen, hemp and nettles, being long bast fibres, make much more hardwearing fabric than cotton, and for this reason are actually much better suited to making workwear than cotton. Brigitte and I were particularly excited about combining the old and the new - could we make a modern looking garment using a traditional linen cloth? Because of the widespread appeal of denim and jeans, we decided to make a pair of jeans as we felt this would be easily recognisable to a broad audience.

Design

Earlier in the year, I had taken a two-day course with world denim expert Mohsin Sajid at the London College of Fashion. Over the course of the weekend we made a pair of 5-pocket (2 front, 2 back and the coin pocket) selvedge jeans, with a single piece button-fly front. I felt particularly well equipped to take on the challenge of transforming Brigitte’s stunning linen cloth into a finished garment.

Mohsin teaching the denim course

 

Jeans Nick made

Brigitte selected a genderless Selvedge jeans pattern. We discussed making various modifications to make the jeans more size-inclusive, like adding a buckle cinch at the back. In the end, we settled for a more modest two button approach at the front, which allows the wearer to loosen or tighten the fit by a couple of centimeters. Driven by the requirement that the jeans contain only bio-degradable material, we replaced the zip fly by a button-fly. All the buttons were made on commission by a local wood turner. This also required us to find an alternative to metal rivets - a staple on denim since the late 19th century. In one of Mohsin’s online history of denim videos he mentions certain embroidery techniques that were used instead of rivets, as a form of decorative reinforcement. I did some experiments but ultimately decided to simply reinforce the corner pockets (where the rivets would be) with some careful handstitching over existing seams. All topstitching was done using a yellow naturally dyed (onion skin), bio-degradable tencel thread, all other stitching was done using natural or black tencel thread.

Construction

When it came to sewing the jeans together, I had two main concerns: would we have enough fabric and how would the fabric behave. I had never sewn with a handwoven fabric before, and I was curious whether the looser weave and thickness would cause issues. The fabric was not woven wide enough for us to lay the two back pieces side by side. To work around this problem, I split off a bit of the rise into a separated piece and then attached this back on later. This seam was nearly invisible, and in any case fell in the crutch area which, in technical sewing terms is “where the sun doesn’t shine”. As for the fabric, it handled amazingly well. It was easy to cut, pressed well and my machine (an old Brother industrial) had no issues (I did use a 100 thickness needle).

The Brother industrial machine

For the seams, I ultimately made the (potentially controversial) decision to use the overlocker. While felled seams are always my preferred option, in this case they were not suitable. Felled seams require slightly more fabric, especially in this case as the loose weave meant you could not fold over small allowances. The layplan was extremely tight, and I just did not have enough fabric for this. Also, because of the loose weave, the fabric did want to fray quickly, and binding everything neatly with the overlocker made things more workable. Finally, there was something quite appropriate about applying a modern garment making technique (the overlocker) to a more traditional fabric. This approach was very much in the spirit of the project.


For the waistband, Brigitte and I also decided to take a slightly alternative approach. Normally a jeans waistband would be constructed by folding a rectangular piece of fabric in half, and sewing it on in a two-step process. In our case, since Brigitte was going to handweave the fabric, we decided she could handweave the waistband in a single piece that we could sew on in one go. In the end, we didn’t get the weight of the waistband right the first time round, so had to reinforce it with a second band. However, I really enjoyed this approach, which is zero-waste and takes full advantage of the opportunities of working directly with a handweaver.

Did we make denim jeans?

Although I say this myself, I was really chuffed with how the jeans turned out. They fit well and the fabric really worked well for the garment. If added to my wardrobe, they would quickly become one of my go-to pieces. The overall aesthetic of the garment was quite surprising however, quite unlike anything you could buy in a store. As my work with linen progresses, this is a realization that gets stronger and stronger - the fashion industry has developed to make certain kinds of cloth, and certain types of garments. These kinds and types are actually quite heavily constrained by the infrastructure and pressures of mass-production. As we open up new (or actually rediscover) ways of working with natural fibres like linen, we are going to access new aesthetics.

This is tremendously exciting, and I can’t wait to make more linen workwear.

Having woven the samples for the Homegrown Homespun project in 2021 and also some of the samples from entirely hand-spun material for Justine of the Northern England Fibreshed in 2023, I knew the spec I wanted to aim for. But of course, if you move from a 25 x 30 cm sample to a large-scale piece of cloth, un-anticipated issues might arise.

Choosing the Loom

But first things first. I considered using my beloved countermarch loom since it is perfect for linen yarn. The simultaneously raising and sinking sheds are gentler on linen yarn, especially as we had a significant portion of hand-spun yarn in the warp due to prototype issues with the mill equipment. Also weaving with foot pedals is faster than changing shafts by hand every time.  

Lervard loom no 9, Folding 4 shaft floor loom

In the end, I decided to use my Louet Jane loom after all, as an 8-shaft setup allowed me to distribute the warp across more shafts rather than just four. This helped prevent the slightly hairy, albeit sized, linen yarn from being too cramped. Traditional denim is tightly set and woven, while linen is usually set wider to reduce friction, so I aimed for a balanced approach to protect the warp. The slight snag was that the cloth width would be smaller, but after consulting with Nick, our tailor, he  assured me that he could do some magic, so the Jane it was.  

Dressed Louet Jane Loom, full width

Weaving Technique & Challenges

I used a traditional 3/1 twill with a tight sett to replicate the structure of standard cotton denim. Initially, the first 10” of the warp shed a lot (scary moment!) but it settled over time. To strengthen the yarn on the loom, I sized the warp with a linseed goop (recipe below) and used a damp cloth before and after the temple to keep the linen strong and pliable during weaving. Since linen yarn lacks elasticity, I had to carefully manage tension, keeping it slightly looser  than usual to accommodate the yanking stretch when lifting the shafts on a jack loom. I wove damp, which helped too. Damp means damp, not wet. You can dampen the warp by spraying mist up in the air over the warp so it dissipates when it settles, or use a bucket with water under your loom if you have the space.

I bought a new reed so I could thread the warp 2 strands per dent (instead of a 2/3), again to avoid too much friction between the warp strands. I prefer textile heddles over metal ones when weaving linen, as they are gentler on the warp yarn. The cloth was woven in two portions over a 1.5-meter warp, so I could meet our deadlines in September 29th and November 6th. Although that meant more loom waste, again it was safer to weave a shorter length to make sure the mostly handwoven warp would hold up for a full length of cloth. We were working to the wire, both in terms of deadlines, yarn and fabric allowance, …  

Timeframe & Considerations

• I wove the cloth in pieces for a few main reasons:
• Deadline for an exhibition in September 2024, allowing us to showcase the fabric even if the jeans weren’t finished yet.
• Minimizing strain on the warp, even though this meant more loom waste. To maximize efficiency, I extended the rear bar using a sturdy wooden stick on a string, which allowed me to eke out another 4 inches from the loom waste. Not the greatest looking cloth but after shrinking, it would go into the hems anyway, so kinda acceptable 😊 Each length took me about three days to weave, meaning two lengths in total.
• Additionally, I wove the waistbands on a different loom, both considering how weaving a cloth like this could be shared in the community, and to also to add a patterned design element, inspired by the historical use of patterns in denim (see my blog on Mohsins' historical research on jeans).

Studio Hilo team and Iris in Berlin

After having met at the Sustainable Fibre Symposium, organised by The Loomshed', both speakers Brigitte and Rosie stayed in touch due to their shared interest in locally grown Flax in the UK.  Later in 2023, Brigitte got in touch with us (Rosie and I) to ask for a quote for processing and spinning the flax grown by the Let’s Grow Flax (LGF) project.

In March 2024, Brigitte had secured the funding and was excited to discuss the details of yarn specifications, finishing techniques, etc. At this point, we had produced yarn with our machinery during a trip to Berlin to work with Studio Hilo and Iris from RietGoed, but everything was still very much at prototype stage.  While we (at Fantasy Fibre Mill) don’t really like using the word “start-up”, some insights from that world do help to understand the journey that Brigitte and Fantasy Fibre Mill were about to take. 

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Working with Brigitte was an amazing chance to confront our work with the realities and exacting demands of a highly-experienced weaver. And having someone expect something from you is highly motivating. We all (unconsciously) parked our potential reservations and ploughed ahead.

Though Fantasy Fibre Mill's main location is in Scotland, I (Nick) worked primarily from a small studio in Hackney Wick. Brigitte visited to inspect the spinning machinery. We also talked at length about flax, how linen always used to be used for workwear, about denim and Mohsin Sajid, a highly inspiring denim expert.

A few weeks later, she brought us the Let’s Grow Flax fibres, which had been carefully grown and processed by the LGF community. I felt honoured but also worried whether our machinery could do justice to these fibres. 

In the following weeks, I spent a great deal of time spinning sample yarn from flax purchased from Flaxland UK, working towards the target of 38 WPI (wraps per inch).

In true agile fashion (show the customer the work in progress), I regularly sent Brigitte samples, However, slowly the realisation dawned on us that the machinery was not going to produce yarn to the required specifications in time.

Some of the first yarn - Wobbly yarn on the bobbin - Gill drafting mechanism

Learning from the Process

So what where the issues?

1. Thickness - The final goal of the project was to produce a pair of linen jeans. In order to obtain a cloth of the right weight, the warp needed to be 38 WPI. Given the amount of flax we had and the length of cloth that needed to be produced (about 2.7m), there was no room for mistakes. There was also no room for deviating from the specifications - if our yarn got thicker, we would produce less length and therefore not enough cloth
2. Unevenness - Although the evenness improved, the variation in yarn thickness was just too big to work with. This variation had both aesthetic and practical consequences. Brigitte’s goal was to produce a denim cloth that would be appealing to a “high-street denim” wearer. On the practical side, the yarn was sometimes so thick that it would either not fit through the heddle on the loom, or so thin it would snap during warping.
3. Hairiness -  As the yarn was beaten during the weaving process it would fuzz up and weaken. This is a well known problem and is usually remedied by applying a size to the yarn (there are many recipes for this - from potato starch to wallpaper paste). It is still unclear to me why our yarn was particularly hairy, we may find this problem is solved once we are able to spin slightly thinner and more consistently.
4. Production Speed - Machine spinning flax is not an “automated” version of handspinning, in the sense that the process is completely different. When handspinning the spinner expertly extracts a few fibres from the distaff and then twists them together using a spinning machine. When machine spinning, you create a long ribbon of fibres (called sliver) that is then slowly attenuated through processes called drafting (drawing the fibres out) and doubling (superposing multiple slivers to improve consistency). This process takes a long time, and ultimately it is faster than hand-spinning when the machinery is large enough to process large volumes of flax at once. In our case, because the machinery was still small and needed a lot of supervision, the process was very slow - 200g was the absolute maximum that could be spun in one day.
5. Retting - We also had an important insight regarding the difficulties of machine processing flax grown and retted in a variety of different places. The flax varied greatly in length, but this was not so problematic as its tendency to clump according to its source. In order for machine spinning to work well, it is essential to have an “even draft” - in other words for the rollers on the machines to be able to evenly separate out the fibres. What we noticed was that fibres grown together tended to stick together and refused to be drafted evenly. This was almost certainly due to differences in retting - we concluded that in the future it would be better to ret all the fibres together to ensure more consistency.

Reflections on the Journey

Though the project didn’t go as initially planned, the insights gained were invaluable. In the end only about 150g of Fantasy spun yarn ended up in the jeans - visible as two stripes down the back of the legs. The setbacks were part of the learning curve, and we emerged with a deeper understanding of what it takes to scale flax spinning operations. Working with Brigitte was an incredible opportunity to push ourselves and our machinery, and we are now better prepared for future projects.

The experience also reinforced the power of collaboration and adaptability in the face of challenges. By focusing on continuous learning and being open to feedback, we have been able to make strides in developing the flax-processing machinery and moving closer to our vision of a community-scale flax industry in the UK. The lessons learned here are not only shaping our business but also contributing to the growing movement towards sustainable and local fibre production.

I am grateful that this collaboration was supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

One fact from my research helps to calm me down: Moshin mentioned that jeans as workwear in the past were not very well done... I reckon I can manage "not very well done" too! More seriously, I am spinning for the weft, the yarn that goes on the shuttle. This yarn is sometimes also called filler, as it only needs to look pretty but not withstand the abrasion of the beater when woven or the tension that warp yarn has to hold up to when on the loom.

So here is my internal monologue during spinning:

Scared inner voice: "Oh no... too thin... blast... too thick, oh gawd..."
Calming inner voice: "It's only for the weft—it's only for the weft," and so on.

I aim to spin two hours every evening—two hours of an emotional journey: the excitement of putting my new skills to the test, the worry about my yarn being far from perfect, the pride when I am in the zone and the yarn looks great. I feel amazing as under my hands, the smooth flax fibre transforms into golden yarn with an elegant sheen—spinning straw to gold—amazing.

Finishing my first bobbin fills me with pure joy; it feels like a great achievement. Then I weigh it... 75 grams, only seven more bobbins to go.

As the weeks go on, my two hours in the evening change from an emotional rollercoaster to a nice rhythm. For now, spinning re-hackled fibre is my favourite. I can easily hold it in my hand and control it, yet go for long drafts. Yarn spun from this length creates a smoother, less hairy yarn, and I even get a proper sheen on the bobbin. The longer fibre is still a bit of a struggle. I spin from the towel, and no matter what I try, I always spin down one side instead of across the bunch. While I really try to practice, I need to keep an eye on the amount I am producing, so I settle for smaller bundles for now.

My biggest breakthrough is probably controlling the twist with three fingers instead of just my index finger and thumb. I had to press so hard to keep the twist outside the drafting area that it made my hand hurt. Now, using three fingers, I spin a lot more relaxed and enjoy my newfound control.

I try different kinds of sizing when damp spinning. I like linseed oil best when I spin damp: water drips and makes water stains on my wheel, while potato starch makes my fingers too sticky.

After a couple of weeks, I am relaxed enough to spin in front of the TV. My wheel is very quiet, so my husband does not mind. I only need a tiny amount of light—actually, a little LED light just on my drafting fingers suffices. I keep thinking if medieval spinners would have spun with a small candle in their times... possibly more romantic, but I like the proper little daylight LED spotlight.

After bobbin four or five, spinning in the evening has become something I do, like brushing my teeth. The body memory kicks in—I sit in front of the wheel and settle into my rhythm. Not that my yarn is perfect yet—I am far from my 10,000 hours—but remember, it's only for the weft... it's only the weft. But it holds well, gets less hairy reliably, and the bobbins fill up nicely.

Of course, I can't spin on my wheel all the time. When I travel for talks or we spend a day away, I have my travel kit with me—either the drop spindle or my little e-spinner, a dinky little thing made from plywood and 3D-printed parts. (Here are the plans if you'd like to make your own.)

Also, as a bit of relief, I spin short tow with the drop spindle. It’s relaxing—I have more control over the spin, take more time to see how the twist develops, and finally give the spindle a good whack before I wind on, as short fibres can do with a lot more twist than long fibres.

As I only own three bobbins, I need to wind them off into skeins. I can be a bit slapdash sometimes, but on this occasion, I am super organized: Every skein is labelled in order of creation, I note the weight, and carefully store them in a linen bag.  

The feeling of reaching 600 grams was amazing! Only to realize that I lose approximately 10% of weight in the finishing process, so there you go—one more bobbin goes on the wheel, and number nine is in the making.

How It All Began:

During my research into flax growing, processing, and making with linen yarn, I came across Rosie’s name a few times, so I was delighted when we were both booked as speakers for the Sustainable Fibre Symposium, an online event organised by the lovely team behind The Loomshed. Rosie talked about completing her MSc in Fashion and Textile Management and being a co-founder of the Fantasy Fibre Mill. I spoke about our Let’s Grow Flax group, which grew 40 square metres of flax communally with the vision of creating a collectively made linen garment.

We started talking about a possible collaboration there and then. In 2024, when all Let’s Grow Flax fibre was retted and scutched, we reconnected to follow our shared vision: to empower local communities by creating sustainable, locally-produced linen yarn from home-grown flax.

Shared Vision

The collaboration aimed to explore the feasibility of producing linen yarn from communally grown flax: flax grown by 30 novice growers in various locations with different soil conditions and sunlight levels. A bit of a risk, as 2023 was a challenging year to grow flax due to a very cold spring, followed by a very hot summer. (Flax is a cool-season plant.)

Another aim was to establish a regional textile network between local micro flax processing and spinning facility. By providing communities access to mechanical scutching, hackling, and spinning, they could transform their flax into beautiful linen yarn. This initiative is a step towards reconnecting people with their landscapes, their textiles, and their local fibre plants.

This vision was underpinned by Fibreshed's ethos. The project embraced a "soil-to-soil" approach, prioritising local materials, labour, and production methods free of harmful chemicals. The ultimate goal was not only to produce linen but to enhance soil health, foster biodiversity, and educate the public on the benefits of decentralising obscure textile supply chains.

Image credit: ©Fibreshed @https://fibershed.org

Who Are Fantasy Fibre Mill?
Team Rosie and Nick come with impressive credentials! Rosie won the "Sustainable Fashion Award" Innovation Challenge 2022 for her work during her MSc.
Both Rosie and Nick also secured funding from Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, to build the first flax processing mill for long flax fibre, also known as the Fantasy Fibre Mill. They also won the "Create Change Challenge" as part of this year’s Converge competition! This award includes a £30,000 cash prize as well as in-kind business advice and support. By mid-2023, The Fantasy Fibre Mill was born—a pioneering micro-mill using open-source machinery to enable small-scale, bioregional production of natural fibre yarn.  

In their own words:

"We aim to disrupt the extractive and exploitative fashion supply chain and instead produce textiles which nurture the local environment and community. Together with our collaborators across the country, we are building a soil-to-soil textile economy in the UK."

(Source: Fantasy Fibre Mill)

First Meetings
Our first meetings happened on Zoom, discussing schedules, yarn specifications, processing requirements, and deadlines. Although the main location for the mill is in Scotland, Nick has a small set-up in London—which is fantastic news! This means that the Let’s Grow Flax yarn will be spun within 50 miles of the growing location, aligning with Fibreshed principles of a 50-mile radius.