Today the Hermitage in central Pennsylvania continues a 250-year-old tradition of raising an acre of flax (traditionally enough for four people) and processing it completely by hand. We offer workshops each summer in the flax to linen process. We also provide workshops and demonstrations for fiber guilds and at a number of historic sites, festivals and museums, including Winterthur, the Mercer Museum Folk Festival and Mount Vernon. Right, Christian showing people the flax process as it was done in Washington’s time at his Mount Vernon estate.

The most famous linen weaver was Silas Marner in George Eliot’s novel. In Europe, linen weaving was typically controlled by the guild system. Education was by apprenticeship and often lasted seven or more years. The tradition of professionally-trained weavers continued in America among the Germans. However British settlers often maintained a basic, simple type of weaving in the home.