Alice Fox: Flax processing workshop

Kestle Barton is an ancient Cornish farmstead situated above the Helford River, Cornwall UK. Following an award-winning conservation and conversion project the beautiful old farm buildings have new uses, one of the barns becoming an elegant gallery that opened in 2010.In the gallery, garden and wild flower meadow beyond, we have a programme of three free exhibitions and a number of other events open to visitors each year, from early Spring to late October.Surrounding barns and the old farmhouse have been converted into stylish and comfortable holiday accommodation, all profits from which go towards funding the exhibition and event programme.

Kestle Barton

Learn about the different stages of growing and processing, taking the harvested and retted flax plants through a series of refining stages

Land based activity runs throughout our programme, parallel to the gallery exhibitions. A special focus for 2024 will be a crop of flax planted in the round area of our meadow from April, overseen by fibre artist, Alice Fox...and culminating in a 2-day workshop on 20-21 September 2024 to learn about the different stages of growing and processing, taking the harvested and retted flax plants through a series of refining stages – breaking, skutching and hackling - to fibre that can then be spun into linen thread.Alice Fox has an international reputation and our workshops with her last year excited the local fibre arts community, resulting in a long waiting list and promises to bring her back again soon for more.Flax (Linum usitatissimum) has been grown for linen by many cultures worldwide over thousands of years. The nature of flax’s ‘bast’ fibres, which are long and strong, make it one of the most important fibre crops throughout history. Flax is shallow rooted and grows well in our northern European climate. There are various steps of processing to remove the spinnable fibres from the other parts of the plant. It is ready to pull up around 100 days after sowing. The seeds are removed - called ‘rippling’ - and the plants are left to ‘ret’, after which the fibre can be removed through a series of steps including breaking, skutching and hackling. This leave us with long ‘line’ fibre and the rougher ‘tow’, both of which can be spun into linen thread.The weekend in a non-residential 2-day event at Kestle Barton from 10:30am - 5pm each day and including lunch both days. The cost is £150

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Alice Fox: Flax processing workshop

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