They weren't that expensive because they were home grown. Anyone could put in a patch of flax among the other crops. Women could pull it (one does not cut it and shorten the fibres), though men could help. After that it was a woman's job to rett the flax in the stream to rot off the outer coating and pith. Then the fibres were hackled or combed out to remove the bits not wanted. Repeated hackling produced short fibres broken off, called tow. Tow was used like cotton balls or waste paper for wiping up or stopping wounds. Everyone used tow, because every woman spun linen. Once the flax had been bleached on the grass, it was put up in stricks, which were a bundle to be arranged on the distaff to draw down smoothly into thread.

Taxes were often paid in thread. Single women contributed to a household by extra spinning, so the traditional term for them was "spinster." Extra thread could be sold for cash.

Women rarely wove at home. That was a job for the weaver's guild, who might trade finished cloth for thread. It was a sign of wealth to have one of the gigantic timber-built looms when they only wove a narrow tabby linen for underclothes (body linen).

Wool was a little more specialist. A fine lady would spin flax, but only a peasant would spin greasy wool. I'll bet her hands loved the lanolin. Fleeces were sheared from sheep and lambs before spring so they were spared the summer heat. Qualities of wool were separated out of the different parts of the fleece. These would be carded until the fibres all ran straight and the tangles were out. Then the carding combs would be cleared a clever way to roll the wool into a roving. Wool can be spun without a distaff. Wool can be combed before carding to produce worsted. Again, wool thread was a valued commodity and one of the few ways to get cash.

But all of these were produced by the peasant class. They still stretched the life of everything, including cutting down clothes so the unworn parts clothed the children.