Foxtail and Flax

Intro

During the late winter I spent several weeks processing flax for a couple of different projects I have coming up. The first is a fiber trade for wool from an acquaintance who has some sheep breeds that I am interested in working with this summer. The second is a papermaking workshop being put on for Northern Pines fibershed in May. I’ve mentioned in the past that processing flax that doesn’t have a home for the final product is time and labor Id rather spend elsewhere. But since this flax does have a future home, I was very excited to spend the last couple weeks before the greenhouse got turned on for the season, processing my flax straw into spinnable fiber.

Setting the Stage

The long line fiber is going to a shepherdess for a trade. A fair trade ideally. Unfortunately, neither of us had any experience with this sort of thing so she put it in my hands to come up with a fair trade for wool using flax.

I started with what I usually spend to buy a quality fleece. When I buy a raw fleece at a wool festival I expect to spend somewhere around $20/lb. There is of course some variation but that’s the most common price I find. And of course, this is the price I would pay for a quality fleece, not one full of VM.

The second thing I needed to consider was how much my flax was worth. I’ve never sold my flax before (either processed or straw) so I needed to poke around the internet to see what flax was selling for in other shops. Here’s a list of the places I looked at. I listed the vendor names for everyone except the Etsy seller’s. I also noted the strick size in ounces (there isn’t a standard size) and the dollars/ounces since that is the more useful way for me to compare the prices across the board.

All fiber was unbleached and had unspecified growing locations unless otherwise noted:

• The Woolery: 7oz= $19.99 (from Egypt)- $2.86/oz
• Paradise Fibers: 8oz= $20.94- $2.61/oz
• Mountain Heart Farm: 2oz= $24- $12/oz
• Etsy Shop #1 : 6oz= $21.99 (from Egypt)- $3.67/oz
• Etsy Shop #2: 1oz = $2.28
• Etsy Shop #3: 4oz= $25.99- $6.50/oz

From the limited information provided, Mountain Heart Farm flax is the fiber that is most closely related to my own flax endeavor here. They grew the flax on their farm some number of years ago and processed the flax for sale. I actually bought some of their flax because I want to compare their fiber to mine. I don’t really know how the quality of my fiber compares to other flax on the market so I’m interested in spinning the fiber up to see if I can feel a marked difference. But I digress; that’s a story for another day.

I know that its likely the fiber I am growing is not very high quality. I’m new to harvest dates, new to retting, new to processing. The chances that Ive gotten it figured out in the 3 years Ive been growing flax is highly unlikely-especially given how unsupervised Ive been.

I wouldn’t feel right selling my flax fiber for too much just yet. People wouldn’t be getting a quality product. So while our situations are similar I would feel more comfortable selling my flax (at least for now) for a less than her $12/oz. That price is #goals. But I do put a lot of work into harvesting, retting, and processing so Ive decided that $7/oz feels like a comfortable place to set my price.

A fair trade

So now we know the set price for each of our fibers we are planning on trading for:

• $20/lb of wool
• $7/oz of long line flax

Now I need to decide how many ounces flax is tradable for a pound of wool. The main thing I need to consider is how clean the fleeces are. Could they sell for the $20/lb price? Are they full of VM? Do I need to skirt the fleeces or were they skirted as the sheep was sheared? If I need to do the skirting when I get home then I’m going to lose some wool, while the flax is ready to spin the day of the trade with no lose of fiber. If there is heavy VM then I will need to skirt that out and again will lose some wool. If the wool is ready for washing on the other hand (ie low VM and already skirted) that needs to marked as a higher value product. So here is where I stand:

• High VM + no skirting- 0.5 oz flax/pound of wool
• Low VM + no skirting- 0.75 oz flax/pound of wool
• Clean + skirted- 1oz flax/pound of wool

These options give me a couple of different ways to handle the wool product I want to trade for.

Preparing for the trade

I want to be prepared to trade 1 oz of flax per pound of wool. The shepherdess has offered three different breeds: Shetland, Wensleydale X, and Teeswater. Is it reasonable to trade for all three? Oh I don’t know but do I want to trade for all three? Yes, yes I do. Based on The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, I can expect these fleece weights:

•  Shetland: approximately 4 pounds
• Wensleydale: 15 pounds (apparently they can weigh up to 20 but are commonly between 10-15 pounds!)
• Teeswater: 15 pounds (again they can weigh up to 18 pounds but they are often between 12-15 pounds).  

I’m going to overestimate how much each fleece will actually weigh to ensure I have enough line linen to make the trade a fair one. So if I trade for all three and they are around the weight that I’m estimating, I would need to make sure I have 34 oz of flax. To be safe, I would probably make sure that I have up to 42 oz which would cover me if the fleeces topped out at their highest weight. Now its time to see what 34 oz of flax looks like!

But you know, after seeing the 34 oz of flax weighted out I decided to offer my shepherdess the full 1 oz per 1 pound of wool, regardless of cleanliness. This is my first fiber trade so I’d rather be generous! Check in later to see how the trade goes!