Nova Scotia Farmer Builds Flax Processing Machine

Dyeing, Printing, Processing

Nova Scotia Farmer Builds Flax Processing Machine

Growing flax and transforming it into linen is one of the oldest ways people made fabric to sew into clothes. Patricia Bishop, a farmer from the Annapolis Valley, is pioneering the rebirth of the old craft by creating new machines, built in the province.

She has partnered with a Nova Scotia company, Timbertech, to build small-scale flax processing machines and wants to make production a viable economic industry for rural communities across North America.

Tap Root Fibre Lab recently won the 2016 Agriculture Innovation Accelerator Award from the Annapolis Valley Chamber of Commerce for her work. The award is valued at US$ 32,000 and Fibre Lab spokesperson Emily Lutz said the funds will go toward re-designing a wool spinning machine.

The machinery from Prince Edward Island, she said, will be able to wet-spin long-line flax. The aim is to create more room on the machine to draw out the longer flax fibres, Lutz said, which are five or six times longer than wool.

"All our yarn now is made from short-line linen," she said, "which we can spin on our current machine, but to get the true, beautiful shiny linen yarn we need to upgrade."

Tap Root Fibre Lab founder Patricia Bishop was on the Prairies for the Manitoba Fibre Festival when the award was made. Tap Root fibres are now on the shelves at Gaspereau Valley Fibres. Several Canadian fashion designers have already been in contact. The Lab is hoping to start offering custom wool processing as well.

Bishop hopes next year to have some shirts from the linen fabric ready for market. For now, she's selling 100% linen yarn. The processing machines she's helped design are still being perfected and tweaked. Bishop also hopes it becomes economically viable for rural communities, not just in Nova Scotia but throughout North America.

'We have talent in Nova Scotia'

Bishop has been travelling and speaking at rural economic development conferences in the United States and Canada about the beauty and benefits of the natural fibre. "We have talent in Nova Scotia. We have students training at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design who are weavers, spinners, designers and textile makers." Bishop sees going from seed to a finished product as a natural evolution of sustainable living.

"It would be really great for Nova Scotia to be known as the best linen in North America. There'll be Belgian linen and there'll be Nova Scotia linen."

Patricia Bishop recently won the 2016 Agriculture Innovation Accelerator Award from the Annapolis Valley Chamber of Commerce for her work.