thank you Invención
When I visited my grandparents in Galicia every summer, my grandmother Invención – who lived to be 98 – would tell me her story of cultivating linen. She would tell me her story with such passion and interest and detail, as if I would one day follow in her tradition — even though she knew that everything with the process had changed with no prospect of returning to the old way. In her day all the fields around the village would be for harvesting potatoes AND flax, and this lasted well into the sixties. The flax would grow and all women in the village would work extremely hard to turn it into linen yarn and, after that, linen cloth. I understand oral tradition better now, how important it is to tell as she knew her version was not written. This was a job for women – a story of their own, of their gatherings, their strength, their perseverance, and their LOVE. I am sure linen is close to many women’s hearts now. Thank you Invención.
see babaà linen here
(photos from past and present at my grandparents in Galicia)