Christian is spinning tow fiber on a Quebec wheel. His French-Canadian great-grandmother spun wool on a similar wheel and knitted it into stockings and mittens as a source of income. These larger wheels are useful for both wool and tow because their larger diameter puts a slower twist in the thread which wool especially needs to prevent over-twisting and becoming brittle. Tow fibers, like wool, are held in the hand and teased to make the thread. Smaller wheels with a faster turning ratio are better for the line fiber of flax because it can be tightly spun to make a very strong thread without breaking.

In Europe, linen weaving was typically controlled by trade guilds. Education was by apprenticeship and often lasted seven or more years. The tradition of professionally-trained weavers continued in America among the Germans. However British settlers often maintained a basic, simple type of weaving in the home.

Heavy, large looms like this one were based on European models but built in America for weaving linen and wool separately or in combinations such as linsey-woolsey with its warp of linen and its weft of wool. Other combinations included hemp linen and fustian, a combination of cotton and linen.

Today the Hermitage in central Pennsylvania raises a half-acre of flax (traditionally enough for two people) and processes it completely by hand. We offer workshops each summer in the flax-to-linen process. We also provide workshops and demonstrations for fiber guilds and at a number of historic sites, festivals and museums, including Winterthur, the Mercer Museum Folk Festival and Mount Vernon. Right, Christian showing visitors the flax process as it was done in George Washington’s time at his Mount Vernon estate.