Happy to find this thread, I did my own experiment this fall and wanted to report back.
My Nettle Processing Album on Imgur
I attached all the pics to this post in case the link dies, first time posting so hope it works ok.
Some high points:
It split and stripped nicely fresh, but without retting you have all the thin outside bark. Maybe cording, not great for thread/yarn?If you are going to ret in a bucket, make sure it doesn't have holes. I ended up putting my bucket in another tub to keep the water level after day 1Retting in Nov was really slow. I let it go for 9 days and then pulled it. No froth, no see-through mushy skins, but it did seem to help?Drying in the garage is hard with 80% humidity. Near the end I pulled them inside my house. It was in the garage 10 days, inside 2...seems dry?Separation seemed to go well, but it doesn't take many woody bits to make the whole lot look really rough. I wonder what stripping fresh and retting the bark off the strips would yield?After drying, fibers got more brittle at the nodes and it was harder to pull long strips. I'm considering giving up and chopping out nodes to just strip 2-3" sectionsMy poor cotton cards! Never have they seen so much 'junk'! I'm looking for other options, maybe crushing, scutching, etc