Fibershed

 

Fibershed
Rebecca Burgess & Courtney White
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, c2019
281 p.

As some of my readers here know, I really love sewing and textiles. So when I saw this book at my library I picked it up right away -- and read it over the course of one day. It was fascinating! Written by the founder of the Fibershed movement, it explains what a Fibershed is, and how it works, explaining along the way about sustainable agriculture, the false promise of synthetic fibres, and how a regional system of production helps fight fast fashion, climate change and precarious industries.

So what is a Fibershed? It's a place-based textile system, as she says in the introduction:

Similar to a local watershed or a foodshed, a fibershed is focused on the source of the raw material, the transparency with which it is converted into clothing, and the connectivity among all parts, from soil to skin and back to soil... It is place-based textile sovereignty, which aims to include rather than exclude all the people, plants, animals, and cultural practices that compose and define a specific geography.

She introduces us to her own background, and the organization itself. She talks about natural dyeing, and her journey to farming her own indigo as well as other natural dyers in the area (really fascinating!) There are also featured farmers who raise specific breeds of sheep that are best for the microclimate their farm is in;  and a cotton farmer, Sally Fox, who breeds and grows naturally coloured cotton -- did you know that cotton grows in colours other than white? I didn't! 

There is talk about local mills (few and far between), how growing different kinds of fiber crops like flax, hemp or even nettle can work as regenerative agriculture and increase the ability of the soil to sequester carbon -- a very in depth and illuminating chapter that digs into the facts and felt really outside my knowledge and experience. From animal fibres to plant fibres, from the growers to the processors, to dyers, weavers, knitters, and sewists, she moves from the source to the end product and shows how and why it's important.

And then shares a bit about the organization and how it works with other groups interested in the same things, and how this might be replicated (they even have an affiliate system). 

It's a great read, illuminating and inspiring. I felt hopeful when I was done, and very intrigued by all the information about local producers in her Fibershed, leading me to wonder about my own region. Fortunately for me, there is an affiliate Fibreshed group in my area, the Upper Canada Fibreshed! 

If this kind of thing interests you, be sure to give this book and their website a look. It's encouraging and brings up a wide range of subjects all connected to a new Textile Economy. 

(first published at Following The Thread)

A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy

A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy / Sarah Lazarovic
New York: Penguin, c2014.
173 p.

I'd heard of this book for a while before reading it -- for some reason I resisted it, thinking it was a KonMari style read, a clear-the-clutter and shame-on-you-for-owning-things kind of book.

I was so wrong.

It's a small book, a pleasing size to hold, and it is a beautifully illustrated book as well, told in pictures and hand-drawn text - a visual essay about not buying stuff. Once I held it I realized I had to read it. It began as an essay (which you can read here, and see her style) and was expanded into a much more heavily illustrated book.

Lazarovic talks about wanting things - another IKEA piece, some pretty bit of fast fashion, and so on - and then waiting, and being conscious of the wanting, but not buying. And it doesn't bring about the end of the world, the not having. Instead, she paints tiny portraits of the things she wanted, owning them in that way. You can get a peek at some of the interior images on Amazon, even if I do hate linking there....

She has some strong points in this book, but they are shared in lovely, non-confrontational ways. Ideas about sustainability, fast fashion, and general overwhelming consumerism; for example, she notes that she'd read that the average American buys 68 new pieces of clothing a year. That seems a lot. I really enjoyed her discussion of quality - how fast fashion is cheap, but it does last for the year that you have it before you buy your next 68 items - and no-one educates their children on "button width or zipper teeth" - so how do you recognize quality, anyhow?

This was a charming, pretty book that I really enjoyed, but I did not buy. Thanks to my library for helping me pick this one up and finally read it.  

Highly recommended to those who are interested in sustainability, or simply in personal essays, and/or illustration. It's the complete package.

Check out Lazarovic's website and blog for a bunch more pretty things, some of which you can even buy. Plus you'll find some good tips on buying more sustainably, or even not at all. 

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Further Reading:

Elizabeth Cline's Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion will also take you into the world of fast fashion, in a much more factual sense, and will make you wonder if you'll ever be able to buy anything new ever again...

This book is a little older, but still a good one - To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? by Lucy Siegle will reveal much about the fashion industry, including how we buy our cheap clothes, as well as manufacturing and labour rights.