Natural Linen Yarn for eco-towels, traditional farm sacks and scarves

camino de tierra de anna champeney estudio textil

November 2009!

  A new order of soft grey and creamy white linen yarn arrives on a pallet, wheeled along the last 50m of the grassy track which leads to my Textile Studio in Cristosende, rural north Spain.

Anna with linen yarn

Some of the natural linen yarn will be dyed by hand with natural dyes to be woven up as limited edition linen scarves.  But the white and grey un-dyed linen is ideal for the hand-woven linen towels, flannels, cushions and rustic Galician farm sacks and bags.  Dyeing all the yarn myself, naturally, (and then weaving by hand) means more environmentally-friendly textiles and I no longer buy chemically-coloured linen.  This, in turn, means I can buy the natural linen in bulk directly from my supplier.  Buying direct saves a little money – and in turn, enables me to pass on this saving to my clients when they buy my work.

Handspun yarn in Galicia – Up until around the 1950s many rural Galician women spindle spun their own linen yarn by hand which was completely organic and ecological but sadly this is simply not economically viable for professional weavers today.  Using industrial yarns is not always an easy option either though, for it is becoming increasingly hard for hand-weavers to source quality linen yarns today at reasonable prices.  Most yarn companies generally only sell in industrial quantities, but importing from specialist, small-scale hand-weaving yarn suppliers (often in countries such as Britain or Finland) can work out very expensive.

I´m lucky that my yarn supplier, Mario Monfort, based in Catalunya, is willing to sell natural linen to me in “small quantities” (about 15 kilos).  This is more than enough for my limited studio production.  To give you an idea of what 15 kilos of linen yarn can make – I could produce 85 large linen scarves, 90 linen hand-towels, 300 miniature farm sacklets or …. 500 flannels !  That means weeks of patient dyeing, loom preparation, weaving and cloth finishing.

linen flannels and hand-towels

If you think I use just one kind of grey and white linen in my textiles then you may be surprised to know that I have over 10 different thicknesses and qualities.  Choosing the right linen yarn for each weaving project is very important;  even small changes in thickness can make a lot of difference to a hand-woven textile.  I use plied yarns (2 or more strands) for greater flexibility but I love singles (one strand yarn) for their sheen and liveliness.  The more twist a linen yarn has the stronger they are but  are less soft.  So they are ideal for farm sacks but not so useful for soft, draping scarves.  I always think carefully about which yarns to use for each of my designs and the combination of different yarns is one way I make the textiles unique to my Textile Studio.

workshop kitten examines the yarn

But, as you can see from the photo, our workshop kitten is a rather too fond of linen yarn herself, so I´d better stop “spinning yarns” and tidy it away….

FACTFILE

Natural linen textiles woven by hand in Galicia – Anna Champeney Estudio Textil –  www.annachampeney.com and www.artesaniadegalicia.org (in Galician and Spanish – click on catalogs en liña)

Linen Yarn for Weavers – Available by post from Anna Champeney Estudio Textil (payment by bank transfer or sterling cheque).  The Studio usually has about 10 different thicknesses of natural and white linens including fine singles (ideal for collapse weave) and finer numbers, including 12/2, for linen towels or curtaining.  The studio does not stock thicker linen yarns for carpet warp, however.   The studio can make up a sample card for you which costs 5 euros. 

 Loom weaving with linen –  So you think weaving with linen is difficult?  Anna Champeney, the maker of hand-woven textiles in north Spain, has successfully taught hand-weaving with linen – (even to complete beginners)!  Contact the studio for details about holiday tuition available for guests and holiday rentals at – Casa dos Artesans, the charming self-catering cottage situated next to the studio in an idyllically-situated Spanish village. 

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