Johanna Hehemann

‘Growing Ideas’ is Heheman’s reflection on the process from growing flax to making a linen garment. "This project’s research is based on my own journey growing flax as part of the Aalto Regenerative Textile Garden project in 2025. Through practice-led research, I followed flax from plant to fully processed linen and asked how growing and processing could reshape my design decisions." This MA thesis project shifts the focus from finished artefacts to the material journey, challenging traditional understandings of fashion and textile design and raising questions about how to communicate their stories. The work began in October 2025 with the gathering and analysis of photographs from the gardening season. In December 2025, experts were invited to lead workshops on breaking, scutching, hackling, and spinning the flax harvest. "As part of these workshops, we slowly transformed the material from plant to fibre to yarn. Observing the full transformation inspired my practice-led research both conceptually and materially." Each piece of the final garment/textile collection corresponds to a different stage of the flax-to-linen process. Initial pieces integrate raw flax materials and hand-crafted techniques such as needle-felting and hand-knitting. The final pieces utilise industrially spun yarn and whole-garment knitting on the fully automated Shima Seiki machine. The collection centrepiece is a small textile artefact hand-grown, spun, and knitted from the textile garden harvest. Working primarily with knitwear, using fully fashioned and whole-garment techniques resulted in minimal material waste. Utilising yarn from local and industrial production highlights differences in material quality across different production scales. The work also serves as a technical exploration of using linen in knitwear, currently not commonly practised due to flax’s stiff properties. As research progressed, visual communication became an increasingly important part of the project. Labels replace brand names with process photographs; attached tags summarise the steps; a booklet guides readers through the project’s journey; and an experimental photoshoot presents the garments worn to demonstrate wearability beyond the artefactual context. The collection and its presentation invite viewers to read garments as a process and to consider the labour, skill and material journey necessary to create them.