I've always been interested in handspinning different fibers, and since I was an anthropology major part of my college career, I've always been interested in how people in the past or other places do their daily activities. As a fiber person when Anne Martessson mentioned on the weaving mailing list that nettles could be made into spinning fibers, I was very curious indeed.
After several emails to her in Sweden, and the contributions of several other members I found that nettles were indeed used by even very early people. The Stone Age lake dwellers had used nettles to make cloth as early as 4000BC and its use had perhaps predated that of linen. Also, I found ramie a common spinning fiber was from a sort of nettle relative called the blind nettle as it is stingless.
I decided since I had the world's biggest stinging nettle patch, to try and get nettle spinning fiber. Using the many directions from the many contributors, I donned gloves and long sleeves and waded into the nettle patch. My son then five years old yelled worried comments (he'd had a stinging nettle "experience") from the sidelines. I pulled the nettle up by the roots and made several stinging bundles of fiber.
I took my large rain barrel and packed the bundles into it and filled it with water. It soon started to bubble and froth. I checked it every few days and found the green spiny outside had rotted off.
I could see long linen-like strands under the green rotted sludge. I thought it was done "retting" - as this rotting of the outer cover is called. I dumped the barrel. Beware - the smell is full of sulfur. It *really* smells bad.... Like rotten eggs... However, after I rinsed the mass off with the hose, I found that there was an almost invisible layer of cellulose over all those nice fibers. The retting wasn't quite done. Sigh....
I bundled the fiber back in the barrel and put more water in. However, we had an early freeze and cold weather. I had been told in Sweden people usually do this in late August, I had started in October, so my cold barrel of nettles was too cool now to "ret." I hoped for a break in the weather, but no such luck.
It snowed late in October and my barrel froze solid. My husband took a job in another area and we had to move. I couldn't quite persuade him to move my frozen rain barrel, so the nettles were
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