Fine work
Garden & sail twine
The same flax, laid soft and slow, wound on cedar bobbins in the retail shed.
Plain flax twine
3 mm soft lay on a cedar bobbin that outlives the twine. The stuff the allotment row buys by the dozen.
Waxed sail twine
2 mm, pulled through the beeswax block at the ropewalk door. Palm-and-needle work above the weir swears by it.
Butcher’s twine
Food-grade bleached flax, 2 mm, in short hanks. The tearoom on the quay ties their bacon with it, which they insist is the review.
Coloured plaiting cord
Three-ply flax dyed with the yard’s own vats: ochre, rust, slate. Sold in ten-metre skeins for sennit and mat work.
Packing twine
4 mm sisal on a reel. The honest budget line, and the yard says so on the label.
Wick stock
Waxed flax wick laid on the small jack, cut to candle length for the two chandlers who still ask.