Yarn Dyed Linen

Linen has many great qualities. It’s naturally stain-resistant, anti-bacterial, and biodegradable. Our yarn dyed linens are medium-weight and work with so many of our patterns. 
 

Linen is made with flax, a plant native to northern Europe. There, the plant respects the land and surrounding wildlife; it protects soil and water resources as it needs no extra water (rain water alone is enough to grow it) and uses very little fertiliser or pesticides.
The hardy plant can grow in poor soil conditions and is an excellent “break crop”, improving the quality of the soil as it grows. The crop also serves as a carbon sink – a single hectare of flax can remove 3.7 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. In flax production, nothing is wasted. Every part of the plant is used to create linseed oil, paper, cattle feed or soap.

Our yarn dyed linens are produced in Europe. The fabric is made using AZO-free dyes.

Suitable Patterns

How to sew yarn-dyed linen

• While the needle size for your project will entirely depend on the pattern you’ve chosen, our general rule of thumb: we recommend using a size 10 needle for a pattern with relatively little bulk (like The Trapeze), whereas you may use a size 12 on The Miller as you need to work through multiple layers of linen.
• The key to a successful linen handmade garment starts with careful and considered preparation. Before you cut your pattern out, be sure to iron the cloth as linen wrinkles easily. 
• We recommend pulling a thread to enable you to set up the cloth we’ve put together a helpful video tutorial here. 
• Be warned, linen is susceptible to drawing out when cut on the bias. For some projects it may be helpful to staystitch areas such as necklines and armholes.
• As linen tends to shift around, sewing around curves can be tricky. We often mark our seam allowance on curved pattern pieces to help honour the seam allowance accurately.
• Linen may fray as its being handled; we like to mark the notches with chalk as well as snipping into it the cloth by 5mm.
• Linen will wiggle about when pressing up a hem so to sew a neat hem, we recommend that you first run a line of machine stitching along your garment at the ‘finished hem’ line. This will help you press up the allowance neatly, as the fabric will naturally want to fold along the stitched line. We’ve put together a video tutorial with this helpful trick that you can watch here.

The Foreman in Acid House linen

Headscarf in Summer Thistle linen

The Ellis in Fudge Check linen

Fabric Care

A selection of yarn-dyed linens

Bags in Fudge Check and Tangerine Dreams

The Orton in Olsson Blue