I started nettle processing akin to flax processing, but only managed to produce very short fibers this way. Birte Ford (Yarn from Wild Nettles) works happily with such short 'cottonised' fibers.
However. during my MA in sustainable textiles, I started to also retrieve the long line fibers, that produce fine smooth yarn. This particular sample in the picture above is an experiment to process nettle green (not retting). Green nettle fibre is stronger then retted one, but the large amount of pectin in the fibre makes it a bit 'gunkier' to spin.
My companion read in these explorations was a book by Gillian Edom, called From Sting to Spin'.
She has since then published a revised edition of her book From Sting to Spin (2nd ed., 2019).
She has since then published a revised edition of her book From Sting to Spin (2nd ed., 2019).
Gillian was part of the research team STING at the De Montfort university, Leicester, who developed a nettle blend fabric range for Camira, a Yorkshire based fabric manufacturer. Their Nettle Collection fabric won the Queens award for sustainability for it - five time by now (2020)!
