We would like to bring every stage, from growing, through processing and spinning to weaving back to the UK and with this end in mind we have co-founded the Homegrown/Homespun. This project was conceived and run in partnership with Northern England Fibreshed and the British Textile Biennial. We’re growing flax for linen and woad and indigo for natural indigo dye at several sites in Lancashire. We are working with Mallon Linen and Mourne Textile in Northern Ireland, to resurrect linen growing, processing and spinning there where it was once such a crucial local industry. We are also working with a second-generation Belgian flax farmer who is growing flax at three other farms here in the UK. We are currently processing this flax at our partners processing mill in Belgium (there are no longer any flax processing mills in the UK), and the yarn is being spun Europe’s only wet spinning mill in Poland. This yarn will then return to the UK where it will be dyed using natural dyes here in Blackburn, woven into fabric in Burnley, before returning to Blackburn to be cut and sewn into product.
Our hope is to have our first homegrown linen fabric available to buy in the autumn of 2023.
Find out more about our linen partners
https://www.safilin.fr/?lang=en
https://www.somelos.pt/index.html
https://northwestenglandfibreshed.org/homegrown-homespun/