Somebody Set Up Fibershed Virginia, Please

     I've been talking to shepherds who raise fibre and small business owners who serve fibre artists, and I think there is a need in Virginia for a non-profit or a business to help connect sellers and buyers, and support both.  Have a look at Fibershed's Producer Program and their publicity work and education events.  I wish someone would set up an affiliate Fibershed here.  There is a Fibershed affiliate that covers part of Virginia but I've heard it does not have a producer program, only an education program.
     I think there is consumer demand for textile products that are exceptionally beautiful and functional, raised humanely, produced and delivered in an environmentally-friendly way, presented so that the customer can connect emotionally with the producer, and sold in a way that makes it easy for the customer to buy and use the product.  It probably means e-commerce and in-person sales at public markets.
     Additionally, the products and services should let people be themselves but more so, in an area they deem important to them personally.  I've seen wool let people be generous, be connected with peers, be connected with charismatic stars, show love to family, show their fandom or taste or profession, be a nature lover, be a mentor, be a planner, be a collector, be a savvy shopper, be thrifty, be extravagant or self-indulgent, be a patron, be interesting, and (of course) be a maker.  And in some cases, whatever their thing was, that was their life.  Honestly.  Marry that with a product of remarkable beauty from a seller they know, like, and trust, and people quit caring about the price tag and just buy.
     E-commerce can be tough for producers to arrange.  In my shopping experience, shepherds and mills are open for business but often it is difficult to see and buy their current stock of goods and services.  Right now as a customer you have to be in the know and making a real effort.  Producers will put up a static webpage (often outdated, saying things like "we're really excited about the sheep shearer coming in Spring 2014!") and expect customers to phone them and inquire.  It's like asking people to click.  Chances are they won't.  Or they are focussed on selling breeding stock or milling services, and missing the person who wants to buy yarn or a fleece.  Also, most fiber websites have poor graphic design.  In contrast, the Fibershed website is gorgeous.  Fibre buyers are highly attuned to colour and design.
     Production challenges are an issue that the Northern California Fibershed supports.  I don't know if that is so much of a need in Virginia in the sense of wool going to waste because no one is there to mill it like in Northern California.  Money is leaving the region: I know two or three Virginia-based yarn merchants who send their wool out of state for milling, and I know of another yarn merchant that does its own milling but sends materials out of state for washing.  I once heard from a shepherd who was having trouble finding breeding stock for a rare breed.
     Customer education is needed.  I believe there are buyers out there willing to pay for beautiful textiles they can feel good about, who have no clue what to ask for, how to ask, where to ask, or how much to pay.  Or even that these things exist.  In my experience demonstrating handspinning in public, they have the most basic of questions.  Ten years ago I was like them myself.  A middleman could help.  In the Northern California Fibershed, they've been able to connect some pretty big corporate clients with producers.
     There is also an appetite for education from sophisticated buyers and from producers.  I know handspinners and weavers that travel out of state to hear speakers and take workshops, and they buy books and DVDs.  Rita Buchanan (A Weaver's Garden) is the only fibre arts author I know that wrote in Virginia.  Oh, and Max Hamrick (Organic Fiber Dyeing: The Colonial Williamsburg Method).  Equipment and materials too, the majority of the stuff used by the dozens of handspinners, weavers, dyers, and knitters I know comes from out of state.  And I see a lot of money being spent, these people have disposable income and time.  I can think of one nationally-known manufacturer of equipment in Virginia, Strauch Fiber Equipment Co.
     Some of the functions of such an organization are covered in our region by local guilds, fibre festivals, and breed-specific sheep breeder associations and the Virginia Sheep Producers Association.  Other resources include

• the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Virginia Grown program 
• the Virginia Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network
• local chapters of SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), which provides business mentoring
• the Retail Merchants association (RMA) in Richmond
• Business First Greater Richmond
• Thrive Mentor Network at the Greater Richmond Small Business Development Center
• your city or county economic development office or finance office
• your Chamber of Commerce
• U.S. Small Business Administration
• IRS Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center
• Virginia Cooperative Extension
• Local Harvest, a national e-commerce platform for agricultural products
• Agrilicious, which plans to start a national e-commerce platform for agricultural products
• Etsy, an international e-commerce platform for handmade items, vintage items, and supplies
• Ravelry, which sells advertising placements to reach knitters
• the MidAtlantic Fiber Association (MAFA), for grants
• the Virginia Commission for the Arts, for grants

     What actions can you take, assuming you agree but you're not going to set up Fibershed Virginia yourself?  Write to VDACS to tell them about the Fibershed model, say you think there is an underserved market in Virginia, and tell them specific stories of why this is true.  Tell them why it's important, relating this to their mandates for conservation, economic development, etc.
     Wear beautiful traceable textiles in your daily life, and be prepared to do show and tell and make referrals to your sources.  Throw some work their way.  Distribute brochures for fibre festivals.  Spin yarn, knit, or weave in public.
     Talk to young people about the possibility of finding work in the fibre arts, and about the small scale production equipment available such as mechanized carding machines, e-spinners, knitting machines, floor looms, and mini mills from a company like Belfast Mini Mills.  Consider a Kickstarter campaign to buy a young person equipment and training to set them up in business.  Connect young people who need work experience with fibre small businesses who need services like graphic design, web design, photography, marketing, and social media tutorials.
     Send shepherds encouraging notes, maybe with photographs of them at events that they can use for publicity, and ask them how it's going.  Tell personal fibre stories on social media.  Help a guild or an arts centre apply for a grant.  Refurbish old wheels and looms to keep them in service.  Run a seminar or workshop for the public to show them the possibilities of fibre arts.  Develop and publish educational materials like handouts or booklets.  Pray (or whatever you do instead of praying) for take-charge people to get involved and carry through.  I'm sure you'll think of something.  Thanks.
     I plan to order some cloth reusable shopping bags to dye with indigo, walnut, and madder, to use as a conversation starter when I shop.  I plan to demonstrate handspinning at a farmers' market next weekend, knit in public for WWKIP day the week after, and demonstrate either handspinning or språng at a museum the week after that.
     And you?

More Acquisition

Another week, another fibre festival.  I bought a fleece.  This is unusual for me.  I have limits and my rule is to buy wool that is at least washed if not processed.  Not to mention I've run out of places to stow fibre in the wool room.  However, the colour and texture was so very much my taste that I found myself standing in front of the fleece warding off other shoppers with my presence as I made up my mind.  The fact that it is a local product is a bonus.

Gotland fleece

I know that once it is spun into yarn, it will lose the contrast of silver against grey and thereby lose its beauty.  I know that I should have been satisfied with a photograph and left the fleece where it was.  But right now I don't care.  It is mine and my wool room is graced by it.

I helped people learn to use a spindle to spin yarn, and sent four people home with drop spindles and wool.  A couple of them, I let them struggle for a while.  They were trying to draft fibre after they'd allowed the twist to run up into the wool and lock everything up.  I was sitting beside them, spinning a little yarn or knotting handspun bracelets for kids, available but not intruding.  Finally I said, may I, and reestablished them at the place where the fibre drafted freely, winding the felted stuff onto the shaft out of the way.

I liked the setup of the demo area this year.  I was seated on my own between a table and a tent pole, with one empty chair beside me.  It was like a little nook.

Love it and Leave it

I went to two fibre festivals and a private destash sale.  I looked at books.  I admired some glossy white Border Leceister yarn, some natural black Jacob roving, some naturally dyed mohair yarn, an antler whorl spindle, and a maple spindle.  I saw some weaving yarn I'd heard about; this was a chance to get a literal feel for it.  While they are excellent products, I was not moved to buy.

I'm sure somewhere festival organizers are clutching their hair saying "no, no, wrong idea."  At some point I will buy.  Right now I am not using up much of my stashed fibre or yarn.  I have sufficient amounts on hand, and I am reluctant to add to the pile.

I should have checked the auction tent for a secondhand warping board but I forgot.  I am leery of that place.  It's cramped.  The last time I went in, I bumped a production wheel on a table.  Most distressing.

Rhinebeck

Went to Rhinebeck on Saturday.  It was great.  

This is the line of people waiting for ticket sales to start and the gate to open.  Many people around us, maybe half, were wearing handknit sweaters and shawls.  I find that really impressive.  There were even a few handknit toques and mittens worn in line, probably made especially to wear at the festival.  Too bad the weather was too nice.  I spent most of the day in short sleeves so I was glad I had my handspun, hand-dyed, handknit miniature sweater.  Its cuteness worked to break the ice with strangers.  I wore the little sweater pinned to my shirt behind my Ravelry username pin.

There were some unusual spinning wheels.

I took few photographs, as I was occupied with shopping, looking at displays, talking with people, and eating festival food.  Maple sugar candy floss is deadly stuff.

I saw a couple of women holding bundles of flax and I asked them about the flax processing workshop they'd taken.

At Looking Glass Wool I got a pound of Coopworth lambswool roving in an intense natural dark colour.  Almost wish I'd bought two pounds.  Got the last quarter pound bag of white Costwold lambswool roving at Solitude Wool.  Tried the HansenCrafts minispinner quill attachment.

I'm glad I got to see the second-largest sheep and wool festival in the States.  I don't know if you can relate but I felt irresponsible for wanting to drive all that distance and incur unnecessary expense.  I got over it.  I mean, Rhinebeck is cool.  I reminded myself that the common experience of travelling to a market of merchant booths is something that goes way back in human culture at least to medieval Europe.  Merchants swipe credit cards on iPads now and it's fried dough not gingerbread cakes, but still.  

There's a Festival Going on Without Me

The Cowichan Fleece and Fibre Fair is on in Duncan, B.C. tomorrow.  I've never been.  I wish I could go.

Fall Fiber Festival

I filled volunteer spots and visited with friends at the recent festival, so I don't have any heroic shopping stories for you nor any photos.

Demonstrating the drop spindle at the entrance of the display and demo tent was the best.  Lots of adults and quite a lot of children came up and watched, and some tried their hands.  A high percentage of folks asked questions that showed they intend to take up handspinning or have some understanding already and want to apply it.  I don't get that as much when doing a demonstration at a farmers' market or a museum.

When I came to the end of the time period I'd promised to do, I considered switching to working on språng, or shopping, or staying put.  As I was dithering, handspinners on the other side of the tent entrance sent people my way, telling them to ask me to get them spinning yarn with a drop spindle.  And I realized I was where I really wanted to be, and I stayed longer.  

I shared the little pop-up shade tent with a knitter and a handspinner with a wheel.  It worked out very well: I could talk to the crowd for a stretch in a good carrying voice and then the other handspinner would speak and I'd have a chance to fall silent, give my voice a break, and look picturesquely absorbed in the motion of my spindle.  

Got the chance to tell another blacksmith that flax hackles might be worth looking into.  Gave someone a starter spindle to take home.

The event organizers have my appreciation.

SVFF dye photos

Some more photos from the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival, showing natural dyes.

Indigo plus goldenrod (?) makes green.

Samples at Brush Creek Wool Works.

The red is pokeberry, by Solitude Wool.

Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival Photos

Fibre-giving bunny at Aker, LLC.

If I understood them correctly, Plyed and Dyed (above) are one of those rare vendors who sell wearable handspun, handknit items made from locally-sourced materials.

Glen Springs Farm llama yarn.

My first look at a Harlequin sheep.

A squirrel cage swift between Schacht spinning wheels, a Sidekick (left) and a Matchless at River's Edge Fiber Arts.

A electric-powered HansenCrafts minispinner at the Appalachian Angora Rabbit Club booth.

A Kromski Symphony spinning wheel.

The Blue Ridge Spinners and Weavers were demonstrating four-shaft weaving, inkle weaving, and handspinning.  The inkle loom was set up for children to try.  I told them that at another festival four years ago when I was deciding whether to learn to spin yarn, their guild had been helpful to me and I'd appreciated it very much.  They were one of many in the autumn of 2008 who talked to me about what it was like to do handspinning, and they let me try using a wheel.

Workshops, programs, and classes are good but I really see value in the facilitation of informal opportunities for the curious public to see and chat with handspinners and weavers.  And opportunities for handspinners to see and chat each other up, for that matter.  I love the handspinners guild I belong to, as well as the group I visit when on holiday visiting family in Canada, because they allow hours and hours in their meetings for rich unstructured, undirected conversation and observation.

The fleece table late on the second day of the festival.

Naturally-coloured Leicester Longwool fleece from Stillpoint Farm.  This is the sort of glossy longwool I think is pretty.  It's very different from the finewool lock structure below, the breed of which I've forgotten.

I made two purchases.  I got some shiny English Leicester Longwool roving from Cranberry Creek Fibers in white and natural grey, and I plan to do some colourwork in språng with them.  I snagged the second-to-last bar of Peacechick soap from The Spanish Peacock.  It was great to see the SP booth's display so depleted, there were only a half dozen or so spindles unsold at closing time.  Mike and T.J. King told me about rapid and repeated bouts of decimation of their stock by customers the day before.

Uniquities Fibre Farmers' Market and Freeman Museum

I arrived early for Uniquities' fibre farmers' market in Vienna, VA and wanted to stretch my legs.  The weather was what a Vancouver Islander considers excellent, 24 C / 75 F and such a light mist of rain falling I couldn't decide whether to put my hood up or down.  I went for a walk down a handy rails-to-trails path and visited the Freeman store and museum.

Upstairs in an exhibit case are a Civil War-era (and thus pre-embargo) ivory bodkin and a tortoise shell comb.  I hate to think of the poor tortoise but the material was beautiful.  No wonder manufacturers imitate it (inadequately) with plastic.  The shape of the comb reminded me strongly of reproduction combs sold by The Spanish Peacock and Crossman Crafts (both of whom also sell fibre arts tools).  The museum had the bodkin labeled "bobkin," not sure why.  Both bodkin and comb are delicate in size and workmanship, and functionally streamlined, not fussy like some Victorian items.

There is an open photograph album on exhibit and the signage draws attention to a photo of Civil War soldiers.  On the facing page is a photo of an elderly woman in a hard-backed chair.  The photo is partly damaged, blotting out whatever she is holding in front of her.  Likely she was posing with needlework of some kind.

Bought ripe peaches on the way back at Maple Avenue Market, fragrant peaches, something I don't find even at a good health food store.  (Yes, peaches have nothing to do with handspinning unless you want to talk about modern versus traditional production and marketing, biodiversity, heritage breeds, and living things bred to take their qualities out of them.)

The fibre market was good.  At the Uniquities' booth, the saleswoman gave a good explanation of the uses and qualities of every fibre I picked up to look at.  They were selling a clever breed-specific sampler bag for handspinners, all local fibres, containing wool from breeds representing five different categories of wool and stacked from finest to coarsest: California Variegated Mutant, Tunis, Dorset, Cotswold, and Karakul.  I went for a tried and true item, a quarter pound of un-dyed Sweetgrass Targhee top.  I continued around the room and discovered that Avalon Springs Farm and Solitude Wool both had Virigina-raised Targhee roving.  I felt some regret for not getting the local product but not enough to buy more Targhee.

Now, longwool, that's a different case.  I can go for more of that!  I bought a quarter pound of un-dyed Cotswold lambswool pin-drafted roving from Solitude Wool.  So soft, so shiny, and locally-raised.  I was interested in a two pound bag of their local washed grey-beige Romney locks, as the wool was very clean and the price was economical compared to top.  (For comparison, a two pound bag of Romney locks would cost slightly less than two wee quarter pound bags of the Cotswold lambswool roving.  The Cotswold was priced competitively, it is simply a different product in a higher state of processing.)  I might have bought Romney locks if they'd had the dark brown there, which the staff said they didn't bring, or if I'd realized I could dye the wool, which is never my first instinct.  I tend to be literal and WYSIWYG about fibre.

Overall looking at the fibre at that market, most was synthetically-dyed and so off the menu for me given my synthetic-free-fibre resolution.  Un-dyed wool made up a tenth of the un-spun fibre there, maybe.  I felt underserved in that regard, but colour sells and I understand.  There was a fair bit of yarn, if you like your yarn ready-made.  I got to handle the one yarn I'd been wanting to see in person, Solitude Wool's springy Suffolk and Dorset blend sock yarn.  I would buy it if I'm ever able to knit a well-fitting sock and am unable to properly spin sock yarn out of the Hampshire wool I have.  There were some fibre tools at the market.  I window-shopped at The Spanish Peacock's booth, as I already own one or two of every in-stock item of theirs I want.

Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival

If you are in Stahlstown, PA this weekend, go see the flax scutching festival.  They have a good video of the festival here, "Stalhstown Flax Scutching Festival," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IRMvC1eDxo.  In the video are clips in random order that show steps in flax processing such as drying flax above a fire, mangling cloth, weaving, scutching, and breaking.

seventy-second skein

Ahora les traemos la hilada a mano!  (And now we bring you the handspun.)  This is the seventy-second skein I've spun.

The 62's wool top, 2 1/2 ounces of it, is from Sweetgrass Wool's Targhee sheep in Montana.  I spun the singles to about 24 wpi, then made two ply yarn.

This breed is new to me.  I like the wool's white colour.  Perhaps it is the texture of the wool that makes the colour so interesting to look at.

Believe the advertising blurbs that use words like "lofty" and "bounce" for Targhee.  The wool reminded me of a sample piece of natural latex mattress foam I once got from Savvy Rest.  I found that after I spun my Targhee, every little slub expanded and asserted itself, especially after I plied the yarn.  Whatever I make out of this yarn is going to look very different from anything I've made so far, not because of the slubs but because of the way the wool puffs out.  I'm looking forward to the results.

I spun the skein shortly before the fiber festival's handspun competition submission deadline.  You can imagine the charge I got out of discovering that late in the game that spongey-type wools magnify areas of inconsistent spinning.  (You can expect inconsistently-spun skeins to place lower in the competition.)

The skein received second place in the drop spindle spun handspun class.  The accompanying prize of fiber I got was donated generously by Tintagel Farm.

Fibre Breeds: Roving

Happy Thanksgiving!

At the recent festival, I saw fibre from these breeds of sheep (plus yak and camel), which were new to me:

Gotland in grey

Finn

Norwegian

Falkland (not the country; the country of origin was Great Britain)

Masham

Swalesdale

Navajo-churro in grey and other shades

I also discovered that my interest in obscure and diverse fibres is not sufficiently strong enough to overcome my disinclination to buy coarse fibre.

twenty-second skein

The stealth skein can finally be revealed, now that the festival skein and garment competition has happened.

Handspun division, novice class.

First place in class, needlefelting kit from Thistledown Alpacas
Leslie Woodward memorial prize, $25 gift certificate from Mangham Wool & Mohair Farm
Best of division, $25 gift certificate from Stony Mountain Fibers

Stony Mountain Fibers owner Barbara Gentry tossed in an extra dollar and tax since I selected two pre-measured bags of fibre that added up to $26. (Sorry to bore you with the details, but I promised to disclose any gifts that I get that could influence my blog content.)

For this skein, I selected colours that went against my type. I did this because I wanted to disguise the fact that I made it. I also had noticed that a lot of people in our guild favour autumnal colours and since the judges were drawn from the guild, I wanted to increase my chances of the skein's colour appealing to the people who were likely to judge it.

I have very strong colour preferences myself, and ever since I was "colour draped" as a child I have stuck very closely to winter colours for my own clothing.

However, when I select colours for other people, for gifts and such, I squelch my ideas of what's hideous and pay attention to the colours they wear. Some people are so attuned to what colours they like, they make it easy for me to discover their preferences because they mention their favourites in conversation quite a bit.

I find it delightful the enthusiasm they express over purple or hot pink or whatever has their permanent fancy. They talk about indulging cravings for their colour the way people talk about chocolate.

Back to the skein. The fibre is Ashland Bay merino top in buff, mocha, and olive. Each colour was spun separately in 40 wpi singles on a lightweight drop spindle lined with a paper quill, transferred to the lazy Kate, run over and under through a box impaled with chopsticks to add tension,* and made into 3 ply yarn on a regular drop spindle. Set with hot water and weight, then reskeined on the niddy noddy to even out the strands' tension again.


*Thanks, Annie, chopsticks worked well.

Tomorrow the World

I showed my spinning to a friend and she asked what my goal was.

I said, my goal is to make something I can wear and to let as many people as possible know about drop spindles.

She asked if I meant to teach.

Not formally, I said. I want people to know drop spindles exist and have an idea how they work.

QED, I recently walked and spun in a holiday parade.

Two thousand down, six point seven billion people to go.

I think the simple sign on my front helped the parade watchers get what I was doing. I heard quite a few people read aloud the words "Hand Spun Yarn."

There were a number of poor kids who mothers ordered them to "look what she's doing! She's making yarn."

I had a sign on my back with the name of the guild where I'm a member. The parade pace allowed for talking with bystanders, and I got to give an invitation to our meetings to one woman who asked about hand spinning.

I attached the signs together with hand spun yarn, naturally.

Columbia Sheep

Columbia Sheep at Cestari in Staunton, VA

The Spanish Peacock

Meet Mike and TJ King, of the Spanish Peacock in Middletown, MD.

Mike makes tools such as drop spindles, supported spindles, Turkish spindles, bone sewing needles, wooden knitting needles, nalbinding needles, nostepinnes, and lace bobbins. He also does large pieces like looms.

The Kings had a booth Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. I got my shopping done (mostly nalbinding pattern books) before the crowds started.



The pace was more relaxed when I caught up with the Spanish Peacock merchant tent at the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) event Sapphire Joust X. Mike suggested the event when I said I wanted to learn historical textile skills.




I was able to get a good photo of the spindles and things for sale



before settling down to hear about period costumes, fibre arts, and the SCA. It was very cool to listen to armour clank by, and to find people who like knowing and recreating history, and to hear what they're into.

I had never seen so many people wearing clothing that was not mass-manufactured, not even in Lancaster county.

You can just see someone spinning on a drop spindle in the group photo above, on the right. To see a lot of fibre arts demonstrations and learn about weaving, sewing, and nalbinding, TJ suggested I check out local SCA demo days and a couple up-coming SCA events that will have artists' rows.

I got to show a couple passers-by how a drop spindle works. Love the moment when they see the twist go up the fibre and they get it. Especially appreciate them stopping to watch when they're not people into fibre at all, particularly. One was just on a scavenger hunt, trying to find someone working with wool.

Maryland Sheep and Wool

Maryland
Sheep
and
Wool


this weekend

Keep the Fleece and Linda N. Cortright of Wild Fibers magazine

I had the pleasure of meeting Linda N. Cortright, editor of Wild Fibers magazine, at the Cestari Wool Fair 2009. She talked with me about her current passion, Keep the Fleece, that springs out of her desire to engage knitters and other fibre folk in celebrating the U.N. International Year of Natural Fibers by raising funds for Heifer International to build the world’s largest fibre flock.

People in need around the world get training and an animal that supplies fleece for clothing and income. Knitters get to contribute rows to the world’s longest scarf. That opportunity for hands-on contribution—that is, the scarf—is what creates the sense of personal engagement Cortright is seeking from participating donors. She feels that collaboration with Heifer International will put the maximum number of fibre animals into peoples’ hands.

Fibre animals are certainly her love. Her tone was animated, focused, and articulate as she spoke about Keep the Fleece’s aspects and the process she had gone through in determining that this form of fundraising and awareness raising was the best possible.

But then she spoke the names of fibre animals: “camels, and alpacas, and yaks, and goats, and sheep; they’re all important.” Her tone left the whys and the wherefores and slipped into bliss. Those names seemed to mean much more than a taxonomical list to her. I felt each had backstories, statistics, characteristics, and strong associations with all the fibre animals she has known personally in her extensive travels.

Cortright was most recently in Africa and scheduled to go later this year to Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia (B.C.), Canada. I, as a British Columbian, expressed my delight at hearing she was going to speak in one of my favourite places.

I took the opportunity to mention interest around B.C. in the 100 Mile Fibre Diet, where knitters and spinners confine their fibre selection to locally available material. Inspiration comes from Alicia Smith and J.B. MacKinnon’s 100 Mile Diet, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and the locavore movement in food. You may have heard of people trying to reduce their “food miles.”

Cortright caught the idea and was interested, so I gave her the names of two groups on the Ravelry Beta Web site, The 100 Mile Fibre Diet group and Van Isle Fibre Lovers group, and a shop in Victoria, Knotty By Nature, that promote local fibre.

While in Vancouver, Cortright will lecture at Maiwa's Textile Symposium 2009.