Homegrown Flax and Cotton: DIY Guide to Growing, Processing, Spinning & Weaving Fiber to Cloth

A complete guide to growing flax and cotton in your home garden for the purpose of making clothing: how to grow, harvest, and prepare the fiber for spinning into yarn; how to spin cotton and flax/linen; the basics of weaving cloth; and suggestions on patterns and how to weave to create the pieces you need for clothing, and how to sew your woven pieces together

Cindy Connor received a degree in Home Economics Education from Ohio State University in 1975. She was instrumental in establishing the sustainable agriculture program at Reynolds Community College in Goochland, VA, while teaching there from 1999-2010. She had often sewn her own clothes, and her interest turned to sustainable clothing. In 2011 she learned to spin, then to weave, in order to turn her homegrown cotton into clothes. Since many people can’t grow cotton due to climate limitations, she added flax (which has a wider range) to her garden and learned to turn it into linen so that she could teach this process to others. She is the author of Grow a Sustainable Diet and Seed Libraries and Other Means of Keeping Seeds in the Hands of the People.