A heads-up for anyone interested in bast fibres in general and nettle in particular: Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa and I are seriously investigating nettle fibre. I’ll be focussing on retting and other techniques that might have been used in northern Europe, as well as the splitting and spinning techniques used to work with ramie in Asia.

We’ll be recording some of our work on the Coastal Fibres blog. Come and visit!

The four fibrous strips of a nettle ‘skin’ stripped away from the pith and scraped clear of most unwanted plant material.