Flax Workshop with Amanda Hannaford

摘要

On a sunny Sunday morning, my comrades-in-spinning arrived at Malahide Castle, each of us carrying rolls of brown paper, old newspapers, rods, lamp stands and ribbons. Amanda and Derek had clearly been busy as the room was already set up: a flax-break, a scutching sword, sets of hackles and combs and a large bundle of flax straw. Amanda began by showing us how to make a distaff using brown paper, newspaper and sellotape. Working in pairs, we each made a distaff to place on our repurposed rods/lamp stands. Amanda then showed us how to dress the distaff with flax strick.' Her distaff looked smashing with red ribbon crisscrossing the shiny fibre. It seemed like a very big ask to think that we would all have a similarly-dressed distaff!