Linen is made from natural fibres. They are based on the skin of plants from the flax family. The history of this fabric began long before the appearance of the first sewing machines.
According to scientists, information about the use of flax is in the writings of the ancient Egyptians. Presumably, the age of this material is five thousand years ago. Even in ancient times in the Middle East, people found use for flax fiber.
Historical information
Flax as an agricultural crop is mentioned in the annals of the Swiss lands around the Stone and Bronze Ages. Ropes were made from this material for catching fish and hunting wild animals. Egyptian needlewomen handled this fabric so skillfully that it was even called the “gift of the gods”. The clothes turned out to be so transparent and light that the skin was visible through it.
It is known that linen fabric in those days was made in a special way. From 1 kg of raw material, threads were obtained, the length of which was 240 km. With modern production, only 40 km of thread can be produced.
Modern production
For a long time, linen clothing was considered noble and expensive. Only priests and people of royal blood could afford such clothes. In Rus', flax became widespread only after the 10th century. Already in the middle of the 19th century, this fabric formed the basis of exports and was in second place in terms of consumption after bread.
Only after the disappearance of hand weaving and the development of manufacturing manufactories did the cost of fabric drop significantly. Today, the highest quality linen can be purchased in Belgium, Italy, and also in Canada. Irish and American manufacturers also succeeded in this matter.
In Russia, flax is also produced at a high level, but it belongs to the available fabrics. At the same time, flax fiber in the world is often referred to as luxury. The production technology for many centuries has not changed much.
The raw material is initially dried and then processed and threshed. Next, flax is soaked in rosse. This process can take up to a month. Everything depends on weather conditions. After all the manipulations, the resulting fiber is pulled out, and then yarn production begins.
What are the benefits?
The natural range of flax is quite the same type. It includes gray, wheat, light brown and other similar shades. The material is characterized by impeccable performance properties. Linen has thermal conductivity, environmental friendliness and the ability to remove heat.
The fabric "breathes" at the same time, which makes it indispensable for the manufacture summer clothes. Even in the hottest weather, the body temperature in such products is several degrees lower than when wearing clothes made of cotton materials.
Experts even note that such a fabric has a special energy. This property has a beneficial effect on human health. At the same time, the material is hardly contaminated, which makes it possible to significantly simplify the process of caring for it. Even with numerous washes, linen does not turn yellow and retains its aesthetics longer than other similar fabrics.
If you have seen the field during the flowering of flax, most likely you have not forgotten this wonderful sight. Linen has unique properties, which contributes to mankind to turn to it for more than one millennium. And today, despite the grandiose development of the chemical industry for the manufacture of various artificial fibers and synthetic materials, the cultivation of flax and the production of fabrics and threads from it has not decreased. Linen remains as popular as it was many thousands of years ago.
You can read about linen fabrics already in the Bible, and samples of these fabrics, which were used by people in the 8th-3rd centuries. BC e., were discovered in ancient excavations in Switzerland. This is confirmed by museums that store ancient finds. Even ancient frescoes, drawings on Greek vases tell us about the methods of obtaining flax. It was spread out, dried, then crumpled, ruffled, combed, and then spun. Vessels sailed under linen sails, masterpieces of painting have come down to us on linen canvases. Linen fabrics have supplanted even clothing made from animal skins.
Flax gives people oil, clothes, threads from which the finest fabric is made, Brussels, Yelets, Vologda lace, bed linen, tablecloths, linen. All products made from it are distinguished by excellent hygienic qualities, strength, durability, resistance to decay.
But still, it is believed that the production of linen fabrics was really seriously started in ancient India almost 9000 years ago. Since then, flax has been grown as a spinning crop. Then Assyria, Babylon, Egypt and other countries borrowed this business. Egypt became famous especially for the production of linen fabrics, where they obtained the thinnest, almost transparent fabrics - the body was visible through five layers of such fabric.
The quality of linen fabric is determined by the length of the thread obtained from 1 kg of yarn. For example, if 10 km of thread is obtained from 1 kg of yarn, then the number of such a thread is 10. Now imagine that the Egyptian weavers spun threads with the number 240. How did the Egyptians manage to do this? The answer to this question is simple - the secret of making such threads has been lost by mankind. Such fabric was valued at the price of gold. Consequently, only royalty and priests wore clothes made of the finest linen. Linen was also used to make bandages for swaddling the embalmed bodies of the dead.
From Egypt, flax moved to Greece, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote about it. He brought us information that a fabric was brought to Athena of Rhodes as a gift, the thread of which consisted of 360 of the finest threads. Such fabric, worth its weight in gold, was also produced in ancient Colchis, that is, they also knew about this secret. Historians suggest that the campaign of the Argonauts to Colchis for the "Golden Fleece" was connected precisely with the goal of unraveling the secret of making the finest linen fabric. The secret has not come down to us.
Linen clothes fell in love and, and from the Romans linen was borrowed by the Gauls and Celts, in other words, all of Western Europe. In the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, linen fabrics were the most common. But gradually the ancient secrets of making thin fabrics were lost, and flax in some countries began to be used at a primitive level. One way or another, flax was used in Central Asia, and in Australia, and in Eastern Europe.
Where did the flax culture come to us in Rus'? Historians suggest - from. In any case, before the formation of Kievan Rus, Slavic tribes had long been engaged in flax growing, in the Baltic states in pagan times there were patron gods of flax. The chronicler Nestor in The Tale of Bygone Years tells about how flax was cultivated, as well as about the production of linen fabrics and oil by the Pechersk monks.
In Rus', flax was treated with special respect, it was valued for its healing power, and clean, white linen clothing was a symbol of moral purity. In the XIII century, the trade in flax occupied a prominent place in Rus', the center of commodity flax growing was in Pskov, Novgorod and Suzdal. Russian princes collected taxes with flax.
Flax processing is a labor-intensive process, and therefore, without mechanization, many countries turned this difficult business off. The chemist Gay-Lussac and the mechanic F. Girard solved this problem - the mechanical method of processing flax was invented, but in France no one was interested in their business, but in Russia they continued to process flax, so the inventor F. Girard was forced to seek application for his inventions precisely in Russia. At the suggestion of Alexander I, he founded the first linen mechanical factory here, later the famous Zhirardovskaya manufactory.
As a result, spinning productivity tripled. Demand for Russian flax increased in Great Britain - in the second half of the 19th century, the share of Russian flax in this country was 70%. Flax soon became an important Russian export. Russia supplied flax not only to Great Britain, but also to many Western European countries.
The emergence of new fibers - synthetic, it would seem, endangered the production of linen fabrics, however natural fabrics survived, because, combining them with different fibers, more and more new fabrics were obtained. The production of linen fabrics is expanding due to the use of cottonin (modified linen fiber).
To obtain costume and dress fabrics, flax-lavsan (50 - 60% of lavsan fibers), flax-kapron, flax-nitron fabrics are used. For example, linen and lavsan fabrics have a woolly beautiful appearance. With an increase in their composition of lavsan fibers of more than 50%, the fabrics do not wrinkle, as happens with pure linen. They have good dimensional stability, fit well into folds, but their hygroscopicity compared to linen is lower and hygienic properties are also not the same as those of linen fabrics.
Linen viscose fabrics are silky, very beautiful, drape well, but wrinkle like linen.
Linen dimensionally stable fabrics are produced with expressive embossed surfaces, plastic - with a variety of weave patterns, which can be both openwork and imitating hemstitching, as well as with the effect of false stitches and jacquard patterns.
There are fabrics with a melange effect, which are obtained through the use of a mixture of fibers that perceive dyes differently. Fabrics with a grain effect are obtained from linen threads twisted with nylon threads, which, due to their elasticity, tighten the linen threads. It is easy to sew suits, women's summer coats from such fabrics.
And lately, interest in pure linen fabrics has grown also for the reason that humanity has appreciated the environmental friendliness of flax in this world, where so much has been lost not only material, but also spiritual and moral.
The main stages of the production of linen fabric
First, flax is harvested and flax straw is obtained. This is done by machines. Then it is soaked, for which flax is spread on the fields for 2-3 weeks (the dew will soak). Finally, primary processing is carried out: drying, kneading, scutching. This is followed by spinning production: yarn, which alternately includes combing, forming a tape, and from the tape - roving (thin twisted tape).
The next operation is finishing production: bleaching and dyeing.
For the manufacture of linen: sheets, towels, light suit fabrics, combed linen is used. Finer and better quality linen yarn is obtained from it. From tow (short fiber) and bast, coarser yarn is obtained, from which coarse fabrics are made: bag fabrics, canvases and other fabrics.
Waste from flax production is also used - they are used as fuel, and not only as fuel, but also, they are used to make plates for wall partitions, and are also used in the production of parquet flooring and furniture. So flax is used in many areas of production, and not a single part of it is wasted.
But since we are more interested in linen fabrics, we will consider their main properties.
Wear resistance and strength.
Environmental friendliness.
Breathability.
High thermal conductivity.
Minimum electrification.
The ability to remove heat and moisture. What do you think is better to wear in hot weather - synthetic clothes or linen? Each of you has already guessed - of course from flax.
It is linen fabrics, by the way, one of the few that are made from absolutely natural raw materials. Linen fabrics are less polluted, so they can be washed less often, and this increases the life of the product. During wear and washing, unlike cotton, linen does not turn yellow, but retains both whiteness and freshness.
And it would be good for all girls to know that linen clothes also prevent some diseases, because linen also has bacteriological properties, so no fungi or bacteria can get along on it. Linen fabric is considered a natural antiseptic, microbes and various infections die on it, and wounds heal much faster under linen bandages. Namely, the silica contained in flax inhibits the development of bacteria. Now think about what kind of underwear to wear on yourself. Linen is also used in surgery for suturing, which the human body does not reject, but completely dissolves.
Caring for linen fabrics
White and natural linen fabrics can be safely washed at 90 ° C, and not only, you can also boil it.
It is better to wash colored items at a temperature not exceeding 40 ° C, because you do not know what dyes were used. It is better to wash such things in a gentle mode and with appropriate detergents, without using bleaching and chlorine-containing preparations, which can contribute to the rapid destruction of linen fibers.
The only drawback of linen fabric is that it wrinkles easily, so during drying, things should be well straightened, and it is better to dry in the open air. Remove from drying things should be slightly damp, and proceed to ironing. It is necessary to iron through a damp thin cloth (gauze), only then your clothes will be perfect. If you are using a steam iron, the temperature should not exceed 200°C.
If you follow all the recommendations for the care of linen clothing, it will serve you for more than one year. By the way, gradually over time, your linen clothes become softer, and you will notice that it becomes easier and easier to care for them.
Militta is sure that after reading about the advantages of linen, she convinced you of her choice for clothes in which you will enjoy and feel great for a long time.
Linen simply helped out many peasants in Rus'. Threads were spun from linen, from which they wove everyday and festive clothes, tablecloths and other household items. Linseed oil was obtained from flax seeds, and food was cooked on it. The secrets of growing flax, and then its collection, processing, the entire technological process of preparing flax to obtain yarn, and then finished textile products - all this was passed down from generation to generation in every peasant family, in every house.
Flax was grown in the field, harvested. The processing of plants to obtain plant fibers in the old days began with urea - a ditch, where the stems were drowned for two to three weeks, pressing them down with pressure and adding manure and ash there. Sometimes a special hole (digging) was dug for a lobe of flax, choosing a place for it closer to the swamp. In urea, as a result of fermentation processes, many plant cells were destroyed, except for strong bast fibers, which are just what are needed to make strong threads.
What remained in the urea from the flax sheaves was dried on the bed (in the field).
Dried grass - trust, was crumpled in a special mill, in another way - a mill - a deck with a longitudinal chute, to which a heavy bar with a handle was connected on a hinge - beat. The hard, woody parts of the stems (bonfire) were broken into pieces, and the flexible and durable bast fiber remained intact. The importance of this procedure was noted by the peasants with the proverb “If you don’t get enough with a mill, you won’t take it with a spinning wheel.”
Then the trust was ruffled, hitting a pole or crossbar with a bunch of crushed stems, or, on the contrary, they beat the trust with a wooden rattle, knocking out a fire from it. And, finally, the trust was combed with a wooden comb, preparing the drag, and then combed with a stiff bristle brush, separating the patches or ridges going to the second-rate lining canvas from the cleaner, high-quality flax.
Combed flax, divided by quality into three grades - rake, pachesi and flax itself - was pulled, pulled and fluffed (beaten, fluffed). This large fluffy ball was evenly spread out on the table, sprinkled with water and carefully rolled into a tow. Yarn was already spun from the tow.
Women and even girls spun flax, but only the most industrious and persistent managed to learn how to weave. By the way, it was weavers and spinning wheels who were one of the main inventors of songs and fairy tales of folklore - the monotony of weaving forced women to brighten up their work with various songs, jokes, jokes, sayings of oral folk art: girls with songs and nursery rhymes spun yarn, and needlewomen wove fabrics.
Sitting on a spinning hoof, the girl pulled the fiber from the tow with her left hand, and twisted the spindle with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. The thread was fastened with a special loop on a sharp spindle, twisted until the hand was enough, retracted farther and farther, to the right and slightly back. Having pulled out the thread, the spinner wound it first on the fingers, and from them it wound onto the spindle. This is how yarn was made.
And fabrics were woven from yarn on wooden looms. Clothes were made from fabrics. The beautiful, careful processing of linen made it possible to wear underwear for almost a lifetime, even passing it on by inheritance. Outerwear was worn for many years, household items made of canvas - towels, boards, tablecloths - also served several generations. Only mittens were short enough for good workers.
Video for children, how in ancient times they processed flax for a lesson on the subject the world Grade 2 (Pleshakov's textbook). Click play to start watching.
Linen is the very first type of fabric that people learned to make. The history of flax goes back many centuries. Scientists have not been able to establish where it was first produced. AT ancient greece only priests had the right to wear clothes made of linen, and in Egypt it was a privilege of the aristocracy, and often the Egyptians used fabric as a monetary unit.
Interesting! Egyptian weavers mastered the technique of spinning, which made it possible to make such a transparent fabric that the body could be seen through five layers of it, and the outfit itself easily passed through a small ring.
Flax fibers are extracted from the skin of plant stems. It is difficult to extract the fibers, because they are located not in a box, like in cotton, but in the stem, while being firmly glued to each other and to the stem itself. Growers are forced to leave cut plants in the field so that, under the influence of weather conditions, the natural development of bacteria will accelerate the processes of ungluing the fibers. Therefore, for many centuries, the processing of flax has remained traditional. Chemical composition of linen fabric: 80% cellulose, 20% impurities (fatty, coloring, mineral waxes and lignin (a product of lignification of the cell, which gives rigidity to the flax fibers).
Interesting! Linguists pay attention to the fact that the ancient Slavs called not every fabric “canvas”. In all Slavic languages, this word meant only linen material.
The history of flax in Russia begins from the second millennium BC. Clothing made of linen was considered not only elegant and festive, but also ritually clean. Linen was valued by all Russian monarchs. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, several linen factories worked only for the royal court. They supplied the last dynasty of the Romanovs with their goods.
Interesting! In Rus', flax was expensive, which made it an elite material and an inaccessible fabric for the common people. No wonder it was often called northern silk. Linen skirts and linen shirts were a luxury for poor women and men. They could not even dream of such outfits. And, unfortunately, the peasants had the only way to get linen - to steal! Therefore, Prince Yaroslav made a special paragraph in the church charter: "On punishments for the theft of flax and linen clothes."
The whole world has long understood that environmentally friendly linen clothing is good for human health. Studies have shown that the high hygiene, strength, comfort of products made from linen fabrics contribute to more intensive blood circulation, stimulate the body and reduce its fatigue. And doctors are sure that flax helps to reduce colds. Although the history of the origin of linen is silent about the originator of this fabric, clothing made from natural fibers has become the most popular and fashionable among our generation.
Flax has a very rich and ancient history, and linen fabric is considered the oldest! It's not a secret for anyone that - the most healthy and at the same time the most wearable? From time immemorial, flax has been one of the most beloved crops in Russia. With regard to climate, it is unpretentious and needs only a long daylight hours, and our latitudes fully provide it.
Even at the time of the emergence of Rus', flax was cultivated in the Pskov region, and later - in Novgorod, Suzdal, Vologda and the surrounding lands. But already in the middle of the last century, it was bred almost everywhere in the country, and linen exports firmly occupied the first place in the list of exported goods. And this despite the fact that half of the grown flax settled in the village: the peasants have been making homespun clothes from it for centuries.
In Rus', flax earned a reverent attitude and was considered a pure, healing and mysterious material.
Preserved and folk omens associated with flax: if a flax seed is put in a shoe, the shoes will be worn much longer, and if a few flax seeds are sewn into clothes, they will protect against damage and the evil eye.
In Rus', flax was laid on newlyweds, newborns were received in linen, and the wounds of soldiers were bandaged with linen bandages for a speedy recovery.
The sowing of flax was even dedicated to the holiday "Seven Virgins", the people say 
or "they sow flax at the seven Alyons."
The people said:
Dew from Fedor - to the harvest of flax and hemp.
The mountain ash blooms well - for the flax harvest.
Long droplets - long flax.
The cuckoo cuckooed - it's time to sow flax.
All work in the field was also regulated and furnished with rituals.
In pagan times, there was a custom: when sowing flax, women stripped naked, so that the flax, looking at them, would take pity and better be born. True, after the introduction of Christianity, this was no longer encouraged. At the feast of Ivan Kupala, the girls, throwing a branch into the fire, said: “Let my flax be as tall as this branch!”
With the strengthening of Christianity in Kievan Rus, the cultivation of culture practically enters a new stage. The chronicler Nestor in his "Tale of Bygone Years" tells in detail not only about the cultivation of flax and the production of fabrics, but also about the production and use of oil by the Pechora monks. Lechtsy - as the Slavs called their doctors - actively used flaxseed oil to heal various diseases.
Flax growing and linen clothes are so widespread in Rus' that an article on punishments for the theft of flax and linen clothes was included in the judicial regulations of Yaroslav the Wise. Often, the income of the family depended on the harvest of this agricultural crop, therefore it was not in vain that they said: “If you sow flax, you will reap gold.” There was another expression, just as short and figurative: "Linen succeeds, so silk, fails, so click."
If in pagan times the peoples living in the northwestern regions had their own gods and goddesses who patronized flax growing, then with the introduction of Christianity, only one goddess remained - Saint Paraskovia. It was to her at the end of the linen harvest - October 28 - that the holiday was dedicated. The patroness of flax growing was called differently: dirty woman (because October is the month of rains and mud), but more often affectionately - flax. On the day of Parascovia the flax, it was customary to crush flax and bring it to church. From linen threads they created the famous lace - blandes. The girls flaunted them on holidays, demonstrating their skills, and the guys, looking at the products, could choose a bride. It was believed that in lean years, the lacemaker would be able to feed his family and save him from starvation. 
Years go by, times and customs change, but unique and beneficial features flax remain unchanged.
We like to preserve and develop the linen culture today and use all the unique properties of this noble material.