Grow Your Own Clothes -A Year of Flax

Have you ever wanted to be able to grow your own fabric?

This course opens up the wonders of growing one of Britains heritage fibre crops - flax and processing it with simple tools and skills into linen.

Full Price- £235

Early Bird Discounted Price- £205

*Remakery Discount for Unwaged or Under 25 participants- £85*

*The Remakery is a Community Makerspace, we make resilience and climate positive craft skills available to the community and offer subsidised spaces on workshops so that they are accessible to everyone.

Our course facilitator- Allan Brown, maker of The Nettle Dress, will share his decade of expertise in growing and handprocessing flax fibre all the way from seed to garment.

The course will be delivered over seven, in person sessions in South London at:

Slade Gardens Community Garden; planting, weeding, harvesting, processing.

The Remakery Community Makerspace; spinning, weaving, discussions.

The course will be supported by an online community, and video follow ups that participants can access anytime to consolidate learning.

Workshops will be 'follow along style' - come together to learn techniques and best practise, apply in your own setting, and then feedback, ask questions and troubleshoot within the learning community.

The main course is supported by a selection of 'add on' workshops and talks that can deepen your understanding of how the homegrown textiles movement is progressing in the UK;

How you can take an active part.

How to attract and motivate your own local community of textile growers.

Additional textiles skills to make deepen your practise/hobby and get you excited to 'Grow Your Own Clothes'.

Sessions; (All sessions are 11-4)

Session 1 ; 14th March

Preparation and Planning

Introduction to three of Britain's main traditional fibres- flax (linen), nettle and wool.

Visit Slade Gardens; discuss growing requirements and optimal positioning, plan your own bed, map the growing season.

Introduction to Spinning; spinning is the most skilled and labour intensive part of fibre processing, so spinning will be a regular part of the course to get you confident and proficient. We will have drop spindles and fibres available but we recommend that you buy the second smallest turkish drop spindle from thewoodemporium.co.uk

Session 2; 25th April

Sowing the Seeds

Part 1 Slade Gardens; take part in preparing a flax bed and sowing the flax seeds, including;

Creating frames to support the growing flax (to prevent lodging).

Netting to protect from wildlife.

Broadcast vs drill sowing method.

Part 2 The Remakery; prepare your own distaff for efficient spinning, learn how to dress and use a distaff for spinning flax.

Session 3; 6th June

Weeding and Weaving

Use simple backstrap or rigid heddle looms.

Learn basic weaving techniques using simple transportable equipment.

Visit Slade Gardens flax beds;

Observe signs of good growth/ troubleshoot issues. Weeding the beds.

Session 4; 11th July

Harvesting

Slade Gardens - observe signs that flax is ready to harvest;

Learn processes of pulling, drying, retting, how and when to apply them.

Session 5; 5th September

Natural Dyeing - Flax Yarn and Linen

A dyeing master class with Zoe Burt and Allan Brown.

Learn how to prepare and clean both cellulose and protein fibres.

Mordanting fibres, for stronger, faster and long lasting dyes.

How to prepare dye baths.

Dye with a selection of natural dyes/ many grown in local community gardens and allotments, or foraged from parks and gardens.

Modifying dyes with simple chemistry to extend the palette of colours available.

Session 6; 10th October

Flax Procesing and Home Grown Garment Making

Process our communally grown flax and any flax that you’ve grown at home with traditional hand tools.

Learn about saving seed for future harvests.

Trouble shooting and looking at how retting has worked in different environments.

Discussions, trouble shooting, flax spinning.

Overview of hand sewing linen clothing, learning some simple pattern/ templates, techniques and equipment

Session 7; 7th November

Review and Repeat!!

What have we learned over the year? - celebrating our successes and failures

How do we progress and develop our practise.

Looking forwards and growing the movement - passing on knowledge and skills.

Discussions and flax spinning.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher Alice Holloway