How to dress a distaff with flax for handspinning linen yarn

There are as many ways to dress a distaff as there are spinsters who use them. Here are a few ways of dressing flax fibre on a distaff for spinning into linen yarn. I use strick and line linen, as well as hackled and carded tow, and commercial roving. The distaffs include stick, cage, and comb. Free pdf download for dressing a distaff with flax: https://permies.com/goodies/106/raven People have been pestering me for a mailing list, but that's a lot of work so I generally piggyback on the permies.com daily-ish email. So kindly agreed to host the free download in exchange for signing up for their awesome mailing list. A distaff is a device to hold fibre to facilitate drafting and spinning. Distaves (plural of distaff) can be of various construction, but it is the purpose that counts. It could be a nail or a hook on the wall, a broom, a stick, or a rake. Often the distaff is purpose-built and highly decorative. Paraphrased from the Big Book of Handspinning by Alden Amos 0:00 why spinning linen thread needs three hands 0:45 flax's quantum entanglements 1:25 cage distaff 3:25 stick distaff 4:54 roving from the fold 5:19 truncheon distaff 6:23 paddle or comb distaff 6:51 Hitchiker's distaff 7:48 carded tow 8:29 happy spinning To learn more about my fibre journey, you can find me at: Crowing Hen Farm homepage: https://www.crowinghen.ca/ Shop homegrown fibres on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/crowingh... Help me make more videos for you to enjoy: https://ko-fi.com/crowinghen ♫♪ Love the music? Me too! ♫♪ Sign up to epidemic sound with this link, and we both get a free month's worth of music to use in videos and other creative endeavours. https://share.epidemicsound.com/gei82k Thank you for the music: (Unless otherwise noted, all music is from epidemicsound.com.) As a Gift by Francis Wells Brittle Bones by Sunfish Grove First Sun of Spring by Isobelle Walton Toys in Space by Ecobel You Opened My Eyes by Jörgen Hallberg WAIT! What about the chickens? I keep seeing cute little felted chooks in your videos. I want one. I need one. Where do I get one? Here you go: https://permies.com/t/fairy-grove-chi... (affiliate link - which let's face it, I'll probably use to buy more chickens)