Sally reports back from the last Craft Snippets event at Upper Riccarton Library. The next session on Wednesday 30 September will have special guest, Christine Powell, author of Knitting in Antarctica: 28 Hat Patterns and Stories of Life on the Ice.
It was lovely to see so many people turn out to hear Papahoa Fibreworks co-founder, Gina Russell, talk about her journey and mission to bring natural fibres back into our wardrobes.
Papahoa Fibreworks - Organically grown natural fibres
Papahoa Fibreworks is all about natural dyes and natural fibres that you can trace from the ground up and getting plastic out of our wardrobes and out of our landfills. Gina Russell heads up the farm and linen production while her co-founder, Seonaid Burnie leads the dyehouse operations.
Gina had spent most of her working life in administration and marketing. Life changes and frustrations saw her head off to BHU Organic College to explore what it would take to grow, process and supply natural fibre, taking textiles from the soil and back to the soil. Gina highly recommended anyone interested to find out more about BHU, the courses are free and you can grow whatever you want on the land they have (as long as it's organic).
Gina grows linen on a 1000 square metre section. This season will be the fourth season Gina has grown linen. Linen is growing all over Canterbury, but mostly for its oil. Gina grows a different cultivar that grows tall and straight and is for making linen fabric.
History of linen-growing in New Zealand
New Zealand’s history of growing linen started around the time of WWII* when Britain couldn’t access European linen due to the war. Britain sent seeds to New Zealand to grow and some machinery to process the fibre. There were around 17 mills across the South Island. The last one to close was in Geraldine in the 1980's. New Zealand grew tonnes of linen. Some of it was used for making rope and most was sent to Britain to make linen fabric. Unfortunately, when our import tariffs were lifted and synthetic fabrics became cheaper, the bottom fell out of the industry, the mills closed and the machinery was dismantled.
Linen: Harvesting and processing
The linen is harvested by hand. You can volunteer to help harvest the linen and we were all encouraged to sign up for the next harvest. Gina said the harvest is always a fun time where you get out into nature, get your hands dirty, and can enjoy plenty of great chats. Gina went through the process of turning the linen plant into fabric.
Rippling
After harvesting, the next step is rippling. This is the process of removing the seed heads from the plant. Gina gave us a demonstration using a comb. Some of the seeds are saved for future crops.
Retting and drying
Following this is the process of retting. Laying the plant out in the field side by side in rows. This allows microbes in the environment to gently eat away at the pectin in the plant stem. The crop needs to be turned every few days and this process is very weather dependent.
Another way of retting is by putting the plants into large tanks full of water. When New Zealand had mills and harvested a lot of linen, they used large, heated tanks for retting. The water from the tank process is not good for the environment, so Gina and her team prefer to lay the plants out in the fields.
After retting the plants are dried, this stops the retting process. The plants are dried by stacking them in bundles in the field so that the air can flow between the stalks. Gina said it can be a real art to getting the stacks to stand against each other in the winds of the Tai Tapu area.
Breaking
Gina passed around some of the harvested linen so that we could try our hand at the next stage of the process, breaking. To do this we pinched the plant between our thumb and fore finger snapping the plant. Then turned our hands around. You could see the strands of fibres that run along the outside length of the stalk breaking away and coming clean from the plant. Gina demonstrated this process using a handmade machine she had made for this.
Scutching
Scutching is next and Gina showed us a contraption she had made with a Tupperware lid, bowl and scraper. This process takes the wood off the fibre.
Hackling and combing
Next there is hackling and combing. Using a florist arrangement prong and a cat comb, Gina has made quite the system for hackling the fibres and combing them. By using finer teeth combs, more of the woody shives and pectin comes off, this is the glue that binds the plant together, leaving the fibre.
Spinning, weaving, and washing
Spinning is next and yes; you can use a regular spinning wheel. The linen fibre is long, not short like wool. To spin linen, you need to use a distaff to hold the fibre because you need both hands to spin. In true Gina style, she fashioned a distaff by using a standard lamp. You also need to have wet fingers; the moisture rehydrates the pectin as you spin so that the thread is not hairy. With the short bits from combing, you have a coarser fibre. You can spin this as well.
The fibre is then woven and made into a fabric using a loom. After it is woven the fabric needs to go through a heavy washing and scouring process to remove the last of the pectin and give it a good final clean.
Pounding with "beetles"
The final step in the process is beetling where damp linen fabric is pounded with heavy wooden hammers called beetles. This process can take up to four weeks. This amalgamates the fibres together creating a soft almost shiny linen cloth. The linen we see in shops is cottonized and not the same as high-quality French and Irish linen. Unfortunately, there are no linen processing machines in New Zealand, which means Gina has not been able to make any fabric yet - I am sure it will only be a matter of time before she figures out how to make the machines she needs.
Papahoa Fibreworks have a way to go before they can completely make linen fabric but are well on the way. To aid them in their quest they have set up a Patreon community. In this community they share what they've been doing to build this system, and this season are running a linen grow-along where Gina will teach you how to prep the soil, grow and care for the plants encouraging the community to learn and share together. Papahoa Fibreworks also host farm tours for people to learn and understand why good quality cloth is so important. You can read all about this and how you can support them on their website.
Find out more about linen
Gina shared some links for further reading and watching:
- Papahoa Fibreworks
- Growing my own garb
- Fibershed
- Country Calendar episode (Season 1, Episode 3) that talks about the linen industry back in the 70s when it was in peril. It's a great episode but you do need a TVNZ+ account to watch it
New crafting titles
Angela did a roundup of new books and magazines in the library. In particular, Angela drew our attention to the Selvedge magazine which often has great articles about linen.
Items shared at our July meeting
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Also Gina and Seonaid are on the cover of the latest On the Land magazine (Volume: NO.11 JUL/AUG 2026)!
What’s On
We discussed and shared upcoming craft events:
- New craft group called “Yarnies Christchurch” that meets at the Harvard Community Lounge in Wigram on Wednesday evenings and Thursday mornings.
At the library
- Our next Craft Snippets will be on Wednesday 30 September where we will hear from Christine Powell who has spent many summers knitting in Antarctica and has published a book.
- The Great Stash Swap, New Brighton Library 1 to 5 September
*Although a different plant, there was a significant flax milling industry utilising harakeke/NZ flax from the 1860s onward.
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