One of the most common fabrics in Hellas, produced from the flax plant that is cultivated, processed, and woven in all of its kingdoms. Linen is usually worn by itself in the summer and under heavier wool outer clothing in the winter.
Less common substitutes may be hemp or cotton imported from Aegyptos.
Properties
Linen is strong, absorbent, and fast-drying. It stays cool, making it ideal for hot weather.
History & Usage
Linen is used for clothing and as a lining for clothing made from coarser fabrics, for bedclothes and pillow casings, for ropes, nets, and sails, and as towels and curtains.
Priests wear linen robes that have been heavily bleached to a sacred white.
The Flax Plant
Flax plants [Grc: λινόν, Linon; En: Flax] are grown on many estates in Hellas, and are harvested and processed on site.--
Harvesting
About a month after the flax plants first bloom, the lower part of the plant begins to turn yellow. The flax stems are pulled out of the ground at this time in handfuls, which are tied together with slip-knots into a 'beet.' The string tightens naturally as the stalks dry. The seed heads are separated so that the seeds can be collected by threshing and winnowing. The most forward of the seeds will still be in a soft state.
Retting
Retting is the process of rotting away the inner stalk, leaving the outer fibers intact. The beets are submerged in a standing pool of warm water, since a metal container would be corroded by an acid produced in the retting process. Retting takes 4 or 5 days at 80 °F (27 °C), and longer when it gets colder. When the retting is complete the bundles feel soft and slimy, If the process is overdone, the outer fibers also rot.
Dressing the flax
Dressing is removing the fibres from the straw and cleaning it enough to be spun. The flax is broken, scutched and hackled in this step.
Breaking
The straw is broken up into short segments when the beets are untied and fed between the beater of a breaking machine, the set of wooden blades that mesh together when the upper jaw is lowered.
Scutching
In order to remove some of the straw from the fiber a wooden scutching knife is scaped down the fibres while they hang vertically.
Heckling
Fiber is pulled through various sized heckling combs. A Heckling comb is a bed of sharp, long-tapered, tempered, polished bronze pins driven into wooden blocks at regular spacing. A good progression is from 4 pins per square inch, to 12, to 25 to 48 to 80. The first three will remove the straw, and the last two will split and polish the fibers. Some of the finer stuff that comes off in the last heckles can be carded like wool and spun. It will produce a coarser yarn than the fibres pulled through the heckles because it will still contain some straw.
Spinning
Flax can either be spun from a distaff, or from the spinner's lap. Spinners keep their fingers wet when spinning, to prevent forming fuzzy thread. Usually singles are spun with an "S" twist. After flax is spun it is washed in a pot of boiling water for a couple of hours to set the twist and reduce fuzziness.
Many handspinners, will buy a roving of flax. This roving is spun in the same manner as above. The rovings may come with very long fibres (4 to 8 inches), or much shorter fibres (2 to 3 inches).
Weaving
The machine used for weaving yarn into cloth is the loom.
Finishing
Cloth is finished by wet processes to become fabric. The fabric may be dyed, printed or decorated by embroidering with colored yarns.
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