#flax processing

[ididntknowwhattocallthis]

Processing flax into linen is so funny. The steps are literally just:

1. Drown it

2. Beat the shit out of it

3. Smack the shit out of it

4. Stab it the shit out of it

5. step 4 but with a new tool

And boom, now you have raw linen

[bonefall]

this might be a silly question but you mentioned clan cats using linen for some stuff? how would they make it?

I'm sitting on a months old 80% complete guide on flax processing. But everything happens all of the time.

In a nutshell though, first you gather raw flax, soak it for a long time, smash it with a rock, and then go through three levels of separating the chaff until you have a workable fiber.

It's annoying but not actually all that advanced. We have evidence of flax processing from the stone age.

In Clan history, ShadowClan and WindClan actually collaborated a lot in the early discovery of flax processing. ShadowClan did most of the harvest, retting (soaking), and breaking, and WindClan handled weaving.

A lot changed as it moved towards a battle culture, following Cloudberry and Ryewhisker and the Law of Loyalty.

[lightsandfire]

This might be going quicker than I thought...

Not all of the fiber was easily removeble from the bark yet,, so I will leave it to water ret for a day or two more (I think...). This is from one of the more greener stalks. There are also quite a few brown stalks in there (but I'm not sure if those would ret quicker or slower).

If anyone has advice,, I'd love some!