Hello everyone!
My name is Julia Sohl, I am a linen fan, and I'll explain why.
Flax is an exceptional fabric. It has a beautiful texture, absolutely unique, useful properties; it is natural, eco-friendly, breathable, and looks impressive! Also, it feels fantastic!
Linen was my hobby. In August 2018, I turned this hobby into a business, and now I am a business owner, textile designer, and linen craftswoman.
I decided to make Healthy linen bedding.
For the bedding, I use only the high quality 100% flax, but pure flax fabric is rough and stinks a lot. I saw two big problems on my way.
Flax is rough because its fibers contain silica (silicon dioxide), which inhibits the growth of bacteria that cause rot and fermentation.
It is so because the industry uses strong chemicals, acid, and enzymes for softness. It is not useful for people's health and linen properties. It's regrettable because flax has critical properties that other materials do not possess(see more information about it on the page Linen benefits). We don't know how many features we lost after that chemical softness process. I would like to keep all of them and decided to find the natural way to make linen softer and preshrunk.
I searched through the internet and tried all the methods I could find. I soaked linen in the vinegar, washed it with horses shampoo, washed with baking soda, and did many other unusual things. Nothing helped.
I was very disappointed, but I know this problem already have solutions because linen is the oldest fabric in the world and in the past time people use it a lot. It means we know how to do this, we just forgot.
Onсe I talked to my friend's mom. She was 84 at that time. More than 30 years ago, she lived in Ukraine, and she told me how people in Eastern Europe care about linen in her time. They soaked linen in the salty water for the softness and used hot water for the preshrunk.
It sounded straightforward to be accurate, but I decided to try everything.
You cannot imagine how surprised I was when I saw the result - it works!
I was excited!
Yes, I did it!
I conducted many experiments put all together. I call this method "Salty Washing." It's not very challenging but need a lot of time and patience and consists of three steps:
1 - soaking linen in the salty water for the natural softness;
2 - boiling linen for preshrunk and disinfection.
3 - after linen cool down, washing and drying it twice.
As a result, we have a soft, preshrunk, machine washable, and dryable free chemicals linen!
Undoubtedly, I want to create my history because this unique flax softening technology that I use is something new in the modern technological world, and maybe this will be our ordinary small, but also a significant contribution to the ecology of the environment. And at the same time, I consider it very important to preserve and popularize the history of the old world technologies for present and future generations. After all, flax is one of the most past materials, the use of which began in the very cradle of civilization - Ancient Egypt. And I would like to keep this old method. I don't want us to lose it again.
In 2019 I made my first bedding collection, which was mostly sold out at the Art & Wine Festivals. Now you can see my second collection, and I hope you will like it. Every item in it mixes and matches with each other. All products I decided to sell separately for you to create your own set.
I put my heart in my work.
I try to do my best.
I enjoy the process, and I hope you will like the result- handcrafted, soft, preshrunk, machine washable, and dryable free chemicals linen goods!
