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.