Life on the Farm and at the Loom
I drove to Petaluma yesterday to deliver yarn, fiber, and buttons for a photo session with my favorite photographer, Paige Green. She is photographing items for use on the Fibershed Market place website to be announced shortly. I was amazed at the difference that reflector made for the photos. I want one of those. It was a pleasant afternoon with some of the other people involved in the Fibershed.
I thought the dog was a nice touch.
I have posted before about Rebecca Burgess's Fibershed project. Rebecca made a personal commitment that for a year she would wear only clothes that originated within 150 miles of her front door. Think about it. That's not an easy task. This project is still ongoing, but yesterday there was a celebration of the project and of Community Cloth , an effort to build the first farm-based cotton mill in the U.S. To have a viable "Fibershed" there must be a source of fine threads so that we can create cloth for t-shirts, jeans, and "regular" clothes, not just the kind of garments that most of us think of when we knit or weave. It is exciting that it is happening right here in northern California on Sally Fox's organic cotton farm. I drove over to Point Reyes Station with 3 friends. Here are some photos of our evening.
The event was held at Toby's Feed Barn, originally a feed store and still a feed store, but also an event center and gift shop. Chris and Diane and I wandered around town for a little while before the event officially started.
There was great music all evening.
I provided a blanket and a lambskin for the silent auction.
Diane, Chris, and Shelby enjoying before-dinner beverages.
When it was announced that those people wearing their own hand-made garments would be first in line at the food table we all put our outerwear back on.
Check out this bicycle-powered drum carder. The power-source for the new mill will be the sun, not bicycles!
The highlight of the evening was the fashion show. Models wore clothing created by local designers from local fibers for Rebecca's Fibershed project as well as many natural-colored cotton garments sewn from Sally's cotton fabric stash. This is the sweater knit from Meridian Jacobs 2-ply yarn. Note the straw-bale runway!
This model is wearing natural-colored cotton garments. The slide show in the background was going on throughout the event. Paige Greene is a fabulous photographer and she, being the daughter-in-law of a fiber grower, has documented the project from it's inception.
Those are my rams looking on as another model passes by.
Great event, great friends, and you know what is really great? There is so much enthusiasm, especially from people younger than me. I want to keep producing fiber, teaching about fiber, weaving, but not only do I not have time to adequately market my products, I don't have the energy to think about it or the expertise to do it successfully. There are people out there who appreciate what people like me are doing and want to help!
Last year I met Rebecca Burgess when she taught a natural dye class at my place. She told me of her Fibershed project and she describes it much better than I can: "The Fibershed Project is a challenge: To live for one year, in clothes made from fibers that are solely sourced within a geographical region no larger than 150 miles from my front door; this includes the natural dye colors as well!
Why? The textile industry is the number one polluter of fresh water resources on the planet, as well as having an immense carbon footprint. The average CO2 emitted for the production of one T-shirt is up to 40 times the weight of that shirt. The goal of this project is to both show and model that beauty and fashion can function hand-in-hand with sustainability, local economies, and regional agriculture."
Rebecca visited today along with designer, Kacy, and photographer, Paige. I donated some yarn to the project last year and Kacy designed a sweater as part of the wardrobe.
This is Rebecca wearing her Jacob sweater and showing off her new book (with photos by Paige) which will be out in April. I will have some here.
The three creative women who were here this morning. You'll be hearing much more from these three.
In the meantime while we were busy Dora lambed with twins:
