Involved in year 2020, 2021

Since the first time I touched hackled flax and learned how to spin it about six years ago I have been captivated by linen. This first encounter was followed by joining the stewardship of The Linen Project where together we followed the growth and flowering of the flax plant and where I experienced the labor intensive processing of it quite literally to the bone.

For practical reasons I continued growing flax after two years of stewardship in a local garden. There I also found space to cultivate dye plants such as woad madder and weld. At the same time I learned the basics of weaving and of sewing a shirt with nothing more than a needle thread and a piece of beeswax.

I enjoy diving into old books studying the centuries old and only sporadically preserved linen fragments in order to bring them back to life and return them to the world much as one passes on a story while spinning embroidering or working in the field. With a sense of wonder I allow myself to wander down many side paths discovering forgotten riches along the way. Listening to stories and to music in order as Cervantes writes ‘to pick up again her hackled twisted and wound thread’.

At the moment I am embroidering a room screen inspired by a medieval altar cloth.

Karin Wijnen 
Oosterbeek
@j.aime.l.ortie