Homegrown Flax and Cotton: DIY Guide to Growing, Processing, Spinning & Weaving Fiber to Cloth

A complete guide to growing flax and cotton in your home garden for the purpose of making clothing: how to grow, harvest, and prepare the fiber for spinning into yarn; how to spin cotton and flax/linen; the basics of weaving cloth; and suggestions on patterns and how to weave to create the pieces you need for clothing, and how to sew your woven pieces together

ISBN-13: 9780811772198

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers - Inc.

Publication Date: 07-01-2023

Pages: 152

Product Dimensions: 7.02(w) x 9.81(h) x 0.33(d)

Cindy Conner received a degree in Home Economics Education from Ohio State University in 1975. She was instrumental in establishing the sustainable agriculture program at Reynolds Community College in Goochland, VA, while teaching there from 1999-2010. She had often sewn her own clothes, and her interest turned to sustainable clothing. In 2011 she learned to spin, then to weave, in order to turn her homegrown cotton into clothes. Since many people can’t grow cotton due to climate limitations, she added flax (which has a wider range) to her garden and learned to turn it into linen so that she could teach this process to others. She is the author of Grow a Sustainable Diet and Seed Libraries and Other Means of Keeping Seeds in the Hands of the People.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 01. Why wear homegrown, handspun clothes? Chapter 02. Growing Flax for Linen Chapter 03. Retting Chapter 04. Breaking and Scutching Chapter 05. Hackling Chapter 06. Spinning Flax into Linen Chapter 07. Growing and Harvesting Cotton Chapter 08. Preparation for Spinning Chapter 09. Spinning Cotton Chapter 10. The Cotton Project Chapter 11. How to Manage Spun fiber Chapter 12. Turning Yarn into Fabric Chapter 13. Clothes to Make Chapter 14. Guilds, Fiber Festivals, Fibershed Movement Chapter 15. Spirituality of Handspun Cloth Glossary Resources Appendix A: Quick Reference Appendix B: Tabletop Flax Brake Appendix C: One-Yard Swift