Muddy stems

My hemp samples proved actually to be ready, so I took them up an hour ago. As I guessed before, it wasn’t very pleasant and I got almost completely drenched. Hemp stems were muddy and smelled a bit rotten, which should be a good sign anyway. Bunches are now drying a bit on the shore. I’ll try to cart them to Garveriet tomorrow and set them dry in front of a heater.

I was muddy, wet and miserable after wading in the river picking and throwing the stones away from the bottom of the frame, so I went straight to the shower after coming in. I’m feeling myself a bit sick and having some fever, so I try to spend this evening in my room spinning with a spinning wheel.

Hemp was in the river exactly 2 weeks. Very short time, I think, Jan’s and Katerina’s hemp at last September were there according their report 3 weeks.

Soaking the hemp

I’m uploading photos to Flickr – check more pictures from my Bäckedals collection page.

Hemp stems are now in Ljusnan (the pics are here). I tied hemp stems to a frame and carried them in the river. Standing and moving in cold water when trying to sink hemps by big stones which I picked up from the bottom of river wasn’t – well, nice at all.

It’s blowing very hard and I hope that my knots will keep their hold and hemp don’t float down the river. Water temperature is now about 14 C. Hopefully the temperature will remain the same (or at least over 10 C) next three weeks. Then I’ll pick them up and dry them.

I almost guessed that writing in English will cause pauses to this blog. It’s too easy to just put back updating.

Beginning with the hemp fibres

I’m beginning to get a faint picture about what I’ll be doing during this autumn. I have spoken with both Aja and Ellinor. It seems that I really have to work quite hard, which I will absolutely do – the only problem is that I should not only remember, but also _do_ something to my university studies while being here…

Yesterday I started to work with hemp. My another apron will be made of hemp, another of leather. I have been mostly taking the leaves off from hemp, which is a very, very dusty job. That means that I’ve been sitting with a scarf on my nose and mouth on a small bench drawing hemp through iron spikes (rohkiminen). Dull and dirty job, but podcasts help me to amuse myself while working. I have couple of buckets left, but I should be ready quite soon. Then I can put those hemps to Ljusnan-rivers water for soaking (liotus/rötning). Books about linen and hemp tell that running water should work badly with soaking the fibres, but my teachers say that there has never been problems here with that.

I also set yesterday a half of a salted cow (only the hide, not the whole thing…) to a water bucket. I have to change the water every day, but it may lay there to next Monday, when the salt has melted and I can begin to scrape the skin. After scraping I’ll put it to lime water for getting cows hair off. The skin will be very, very thick. I’ll be using it for the shoe soles.

Soon I should begin to take the hair off from 6 another hides too. Those will be my frock (alusmekko), which I will tan with fat.