From Flax to Linen @museum.de

F: It's hard for us to imagine how much time and effort people of earlier generations had to put in to making their clothes. The range of available yarns and fabrics was quite small. In summer people wore cool linen, in winter sheep's wool. And both were processed by hand in the home, from raw material to finished garment.

M: Flax was sown early in the year. At the beginning of June it bloomed, producing beautiful pale blue flowers. But exactly 100 days after sowing, the plant was pulled out by the root, laid out to dry in the field, then tied into bundles and dried further in the form of sheaves.

F: The seed pods were stripped from the stalks by pulling them through a coarse iron comb. To break down the stalks, they were spread out in the field to catch the morning dew and then dried again. Now, the fibres could be freed from the woody parts of the stalk. First, the stalks were broken into short sections by placing bundles of them on what's called a brake, and pressing down the lever. The woody parts became detached from the fibres and fell away.

Next, the bundles of fibres were pulled through finer and finer combs called hackles and thoroughly brushed. With each pass, the fibres became ever finer until they were soft and delicate. But there was more processing to come. Here the rule of thumb was: the longer the fibre, the more valuable the yarn.

M: The inferior short fibres were used to make candle wicks or ropes, or for cleaning and oiling machines, or as insulation in shipbuilding. The nice long fibres were spun into yarns in the home – a time-consuming occupation that kept the women busy all winter.

F: The spun yarn was finally used to dress the loom and woven into linen cloth, which was put out to bleach on the bleaching green. The cloth could then be dyed using the indigo printing process before being turned into shirts, aprons, jackets or even bed linen.