Growing and processing flax

Three years ago my teacher from the weaving class gave two handfuls of fiber flax seeds. From that very moment, I knew that I'd grow my flax. In May 2018 I planted the seeds in my parent's garden. I visit my parents almost every weekend, so, I watched my flax grow but didn't do any weeding or watering because I had no time for that during the short visits. Nevertheless, it did grow well!

I don't have a rippler or a special comp to separate seed bolls from the stems, so I used just my hands to ripple the flax. Later I put all the seed bolls in a pillowcase for drying and then used a rolling pin to separate seeds from the bolls.
Now to the retting process. There are two ways to rett the flax: wet retting and dew retting. For water retting, you need a slow brook or a still pond, a tank or an inflatable pool. You put your flax in the water and lay some stones over it to be under the water. The process begins - water and bacteria dissolve natural pectins and the fiber can be easily separated from the hard stem. Water retting takes several days and it is fast compared to dew retting, which usually takes 2-3-4 weeks.
I chose dew retting because I was not able to control the process (couldn't stay for 3-4 days at my parents because I need to work and kids go to school) and because our falls are perfect for dew retting - it's raining all the time :). Dew retting means spreading the flax on a field and leaving it for almost a month under the long rains, morning dews, and first frosts. I laid mine in late October and the process took 3 weeks. I checked it every weekend and when the fiber started to separate from the stem, I gathered the flax and put it inside the barn to dry.

Breaking flax is a very dirty and dusty process, this should be done outside. I tried to break and scutch my flax in winter, but it was so cold and damp that I hardly processed 10 grams of fiber. I postponed the process of preparing the fiber for spinning till summer.
So, in June 2019 I started breaking the flax. My father made a simple brake which works just fine.
I don't have much of the equipment for processing flax. I know I need a hackle, which is quite expensive, so, I used my hand carders to card the fiber though I know that this is not quite the right thing to do. Anyway, I got the fiber: long, short and tow.
The most important thing about growing and processing flax is that it's very easy to grow but not that easy to process. Processing takes lots of time and effort, and I'm still not done with mine. But when I finish prepping I plan to spin and weave it into a lovely item which will bring me lots of warm memories!