Extracting fine fibres (for textiles) from nettles

[Cyclingrelf]

I'm currently investigating making some nettle thread - the soft stuff made with the white fibres rather than the coarse stuff made with the entire skins.

While I was hunting, I found these videos that take you through the whole process of extracting fibres from flax, which is a really similar process apparently:

Harvesting the flax:
[video=youtube;bAvUrj-Yq6s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAvUrj-Yq6s[/video]

Retting
[video=youtube;nneyp3_Sj7Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nneyp3_Sj7Q&feature=related[/video]

Breaking
[video=youtube;ARzjwYDtkSA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARzjwYDtkSA&feature=related[/video]

Scutching
[video=youtube;f5ooyn54oXM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5ooyn54oXM&feature=related[/video]

Combing
[video=youtube;WOpETzPmH8A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOpETzPmH8A&feature=related[/video]

If anyone else was thinking of playing with fine nettle fibres, you might also be interested in this post I found from Toddy in a post about nettle string:

Spin it damp like flax but don't leave it damp, it grows foosty very quickly. If you've kept the fibres in bundles or broken it out like flax it ought to be already lined up for spinning. If not, you can draw out lengths from the smashed stems to make a strick. Short lengths card well.

The thing is that flax will give you about 12% fibre from dry weight of material but nettle will only give 1 or 2%. So you need a *lot*. Thereafter it's much the same. Cut, stack, dry out a bit, bundle and soak until it starts to decay then dry and beat or break out the fibres. (easier if you wrap them in a clean cloth)

If you're in a hurry, cut the stems, strip the leaves and then pour boiling water over the stems. Walk up and down over them or beat them with rounded stick to seperate the skins from the woody core. Peel off the lengths and again soak to encourage retting, sometimes even a day can be enough....be careful watch out for a powdery mildew forming on the damp stems.

At this point it gets fiddly because you have no core to act as a stiffened length to break out the fibres. However, if you keep the lengths in bundles you can twist them in water until the detritus comes away and the fibres come out clean. Nettle fibres may break at the leaf nodes, unlike flax which carries it's leaves v.high and on unbranched stems, it's a knack to remove the leaves without compromising the 'skin' of the nettle. However even short fibre is still good stuff.
The pulp of crushed stems and leaves with little broken bits of fibre make excellent papier mache, just mould it around a bowl or a ball and let it dry.

Cheers,
Toddy

That's all I've found out so far, but if anyone has any tips that might help me, please feel free to post! I'm particularly curious about what the nettles should look like when the retting process has finished.

Thanks.