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June


The last month has been one of quietness, an easing into Summer. Talking long awaited plans into being with old and new friends, this month I’ll be launching a workshop program for August and September; as well as introductions into natural dyeing practice this Summer’s offering will include wool spinning, the ancient craft of backstop weaving, natural ink-making and block printing. Details and booking information coming in mid-June…

Susie x


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01. Garden

19th Century Jacquard Damask Hand Loom at the Irish Linen Centre, Lisburn, Northern Ireland October 2019

In October of 2019 I travelled to Northern Ireland on a goose chase of a job interview and passed through Lisburn to visit the Irish Linen Centre, a museum dedicated to the history, craft and traditions of Ireland’s linen heritage. I did not get the job. But a little seed was sown and I wondered if I could try growing flax back home in Cornwall. At the time I had just left London and had pretty much no knowledge or practical experience of growing.





Simon shows the Hackling process of dressing flax. The scutched flax passed over increasingly finer combs, removing the fibrous outer and aligning the fibres for spinning. Retted and dried flax before and after combing. Flaxlands, Stroud, October 2021



A couple years in-between, last October I had the joy of learning the flax process from Simon at Flaxland UK at his workshop in Stroud, who is so generous with his hard earned wisdom and has the best and weirdest self

built and hacked mini scale machinery. Spending a day in his company gave me the confidence to experiment with growing my own flax and in late April I sowed a small 10 metre square test site. Germination has so far been good and 4 weeks later the 4 inch seedlings are just about beating the Creeping Buttercups. Flax is traditionally 100 days from sowing to harvest, when processing can begin. Will update soon!



02. Kitchen

This month I went to a talk with medical herbalist Ruthie Weaver at Newlyn Fermentary, an introduction into the medicinal potential of our native plants. Folkloric connotations of plants and that lost language to our modern vernacular is something I’ve been interested in for a while, since a visit last year to a Tudor period garden in Sussex containing plants for food, medicine and dyeing, and frequently crossovers between.



Yarrow is a herb traditionally associated with healing, as well as warding off evil; in Irish tradition it was hung in the home for protection, and on St. John’s Eve to turn away illness. It also contains flavonoids, the compounds also present in Weld which yield a yellow dye; scientifically flavonoids are proven to reduce inflammation in the body. Last year I grew Yarrow from seed and experimented with the fresh flower heads to get soft yellow and pale sage shades; with this season’s first flowers I’ve been brewing tea with Mint:


Steep a sprig of Yarrow with a few sprigs of fresh mint in a cup of boiling water for 10 minutes. Strain and honey to taste.

03. Saved and Seen     

Things from the internet and real life. 


Shepherd on stilts, Landes, France. via @_gathering_ Georgia O’Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz, 1946 via @okeeffemuseum Woodfired vase by my aunt, Deborah Mitchell. Flowers from the garden Herb garden at Coombeshead Farm, Lewannick. Reclamation yard colour palette Saint Austell