[Regia-NA] good nettle prices?;)

[Joy Cain]

I have a flax brake, a scutching knife and two sizes of hackles. I¹ll be
right over.

According to Rita Buchanan, ³A Weaver¹s Garden², pgs 40-42 there are three
ways to prep the fibers from nettles:

³...The first is to cut green stems and peel off the outer layer of fibers
and skin right away (within an hour or two of cutting) and then ret the
strips of fiber. The second is to cut and ret whole stems until the the
fibers strip off easily. Either way you begin, finish by scraping, rinsing,
combing and drying the fibers. The third method, used by North American
Indians for wood nettles and stingless nettles, is to leave the dead stalks
outdoors to decay until winter, then peel the fibers from the dry stem and
flake off the remnants of outer skin.²

If you over-ret the fiber, you can still make paper from it.

Joy


cool- I'll check the  stems and see if they look decent...
>  
> 
> Jan Ward <hawksbluff at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I think I know where I can borrow a flax brake. Might
>> even be a scutching knife, too.
>> Jan
>> 
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