Loving wool and linen

I just love wool. And linen.

My wool comes from the beautiful Tatra Mountains in Poland. This wool is great for felting (been felted there for centuries and used to make traditional clothing).

Tatra Mountains are the enchanted mountains of my childhood. I've slept in an old mountaineer's wooden house above the sheep pen so many times as a child, waking up to a distant, faint sound of "baaaa!" on a clear, frosty morning.

... the old man's wife, the gazdzina, wrapped tightly in an ancient woolen scarf, is just coming into our room with all usual familiarity, without knocking, bringing in the heavy smell of sheep and hay. She is carrying a bucket full of charcoal for the huge tile stove and a mouth full of gossip that we are hardly able to follow, for she is speaking in a local dialect that falls on our ears like music. She knows about wool and she remembers older women from her family spinning and weaving wool from their sheep.

... it is a freezing, pale dusk and we're visiting local craft market with plenitude of wool products, set under the wintry sky. We're so cold, but we delight too much in browsing blankets, mountains of raw wool, sweaters, mittens, caps and socks in natural colors and traditional patterns. There are also slippers, belts and gifts made of local leather, many embroidered with old motifs. I am awed by the softness of sheepskin, by the sharp smell of scratchy wool. Just behind us a long queue of frosted sleigh horses is napping. One of them, pulling impatiently, will take us, hidden under dirty woolen blankets, back through snow and growing dusk to the house - to our room that is like a warm golden box hurled into the dark well of the night.

I also love the texture and hues of linen and cannot resist hand woven pieces. There's so much more involved than just the end product. When holding a piece of linen fabric or a woolen blanket, do you think of the person who's spun, the one who's woven it? Especially those old, worn pieces - they hold material for many good tales.

Poland has a long history in producing and exporting good quality linen and I fully support the idea of contributing to the tradition by using fiber of Polish origin. I'm searching for hand woven linen to order in bigger quantity. 

Think of the delicate flowers of the flax plant that gives such a strong fiber. It's amazing.

There are people in Poland still - mostly old people - who grow flax, gather and process it and then spin and weave linen on an old-fashioned loom. The craft of making traditional woolen kilims is also quite alive, with some patterns used that are centuries old.