This weekend, open-air museum de Locht, in collaboration with the Eynderhoof and Kantfabriek museums, is paying special attention to flax and its processing. Flax has played an important role in the history of this region over the centuries. In the regular collection of our museum there is a lot that reminds of flax cultivation.
“From flax to linen”. Repels, rotting, vomiting, denouncing and swaying, we will show you all on Sunday, tell you about it and if possible, you can do it yourself. We spin and weave. In the cinema, a film about flax cultivation is shown. There is a lecture and there are workshops about flax. Washing and bleaching, how did they do it? What did irons look like back then?
In addition to linen, flax served as a raw material for dye or edible oil. The squeezed seeds were processed into line cakes, animal feed. The “blobs and hovels” (waste) were used to make rope and paper. From the coarse linen the baalschollek and waerkbòkse were made. The finest linen was for bed sheets, pillowcases and undershirts. There was almost no waste.
There is plenty to do for children. They can tie bracelets, weave on small weaving frames or color with textile markers on linen bags. If they want to help with washing in the way they used to, that is also possible. It is interesting and educational, this part of the region’s history. You will discover that people had to work very hard at the time. Flax cultivation was very labour-intensive.