Flax Processing with Sandy and Durl of Golden State Linen

Join us at the Fibershed Learning Center in Point Reyes Station, CA for a fun, informative, and hands-on workshop on turning flax to linen.

Date

May 17, 2025

10am – 4pm

Location

Fibershed Learning Center

14000 Point Reyes – Petaluma Road Point Reyes Station, CA 94956

The Event

Topics and demonstrations will include:

• Planting flax seed—broadcasting techniques versus row planting
• Harvesting flax—the right time to harvest for just fiber or fiber plus seed
• Bundling flax—preparing the harvested flax for retting
• Retting—both dew retting and wet retting explained. We will discuss using a small tank or low-volume sprinklers, and show examples of ready-retted flax.

The hands-on portion of the workshop will include:

• Processing retted flax—learn how use a traditional brake, scutch/paddle, and a series of hackles
• Creating a strick—a decorative bundle of fiber ready to be converted into sliver for spinning

Students will come home with some seeds for planting in their garden, flax straw ready for processing, handouts on how to make equipment, and more!

The class is limited to 15-20 students, and will take place at the beautiful Fibershed Learning Center. The class will take place in the Learning Center Studio, which opens up into the dye pavilion patio and has plenty of ventilation.

About the Instructor

Sandy Fisher has been a professional weaver for over 40 years working with natural fibers, her favorite being linen. In 2012 the importance of producing textiles on a local level was becoming a national movement. Missing in the local textile production in Northern California was linen. Sandy and other community members in Chico began to grow then harvest fiber flax for linen. In 2017 her husband Durl Van Alstyne joined the local linen movement when they acquired a small farm to expand their vision. The farm gave them the opportunity to grow fiber flax on a larger scale while practicing Regenerative Agriculture. Harvesting on a larger scale required a need to create small scale mechanical flax processing tools to accommodate their growth. Chico Flax was then created which is now a non profit called Golden State Linen to education and encourage flax to linen as a viable industry here in the north state.

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