The Fibershed Project is an undertaking that Rebecca Burgess initially applied as a means to prove how our communities have the ability to produce “clothing within the confines of its own bioregion.” By creating a network of ranchers, farmers, designers, weavers, seamstresses, spinners, knitters, and natural dyers in her home region of San Geronimo, CA, the project has turned into a textile resource base for the locality. With a recently launched Marketplace featuring materials and finished pieces created through the Fibershed, this venture is proving its worth. After a busy summer on her dye farm, which boasted a 100 lbs. harvest of fresh dye flowers (turned into 15 lbs. after drying), The Green Stylist caught up with the resourceful Miss Burgess.

How would you explain the Fibershed Project and its development?

The Fibershed Project started out as a one-year attempt for me to see if I could wear clothes made from fiber and dye-plants that were sourced 150 miles from my front door. Initially I thought I could go to all the local farms and use my skills as a spinner, weaver, dyer and sewer to work out this crazy challenge on my own.  However, I quickly realized that the project would need to be about the community in order to benefit the local economy and for me to see what resources we actually have in our region. I began bringing designers who were falling in love with the romantic idea of the countryside and pastures out to meet the farmers I had found. So the project turned into a community of people who were fascinated by the idea of localizing their artisanship.

Now the development of the project is to increase that network. Since we did a lot of meet and greets and Fibershed gatherings during and after the one-year wardrobe, the network now lives on its own and people are connecting to each other through it. The marketplace we’ve developed for the Fibershed is almost like an R&D lab we’re I’m really starting to see how people are collaborating and forming friendships.

How has the project been received by members of your local community?

People with good things to say will communicate it to me, criticism doesn’t really reach me. Most people are excited by the project and find it intriguing. Initially, many thought it was too idealistic, that it won’t actually clothe people. But after extensive travel in Southeast Asia and seeing that it is how people clothe themselves, it made me think it really isn’t. It’s just new terrain in western culture. Bringing the consciousness of localizing the textile industry to the West freaks people out.

The people involved are finding it to be great, although at first some of the designers weren’t sure how it was going to work on the ground level. Now though, one of our designers, who has worked for Levis and is now at North Face, is creating a great line with Fibershed materials, proving that it can happen.

So are you actually able to keep your entire process within 150 miles of your front door? 

There is no cotton or fine gauge wool mill in the area, but we are willing to go out of the community for good quality milling because a market for Fibershed goods needs to be established before it is viable to set up mills in the community.  So we will produce samples outside of the regional area, which we will turn into garments to show farmers how their cotton and wool is moved. We’re aiming to mill some samples in North Carolina for the spring of 2012, however wont call them 100% Fibershed Project garments. We also want to make sure to keep purity of our brand, so wont sell through other larger brands, such as Levis. If we had the Pentagon budget, we could clothe every American in US made clothes. But the Fibershed aims to work in the structure of a CSA, where everyone involved needs to think of changing whole textile supply line and creating a paradigm shift in the way we produce and wear clothing.

How do designers in the Fibershed collaborate with the farmers producing fibers?

A perfect example of this is the collaboration between Kacy Dapp and Robin Lynde (pictured above). Kacy knitted a multifunctional sweater from the wool of Robyn’s sheep and their collaboration continues as she’s now making hats and knit kits for Robin.

The knit kits are actually what I believe to be the best way to support collaboration and bring the urban and rural together. They are a symbol of a structure being built where design skill is brought to an under-appreciated resource. The rewards are split fairly: say if a knit-kit is $87, $80 of that will go to the farmer for the wool and $7 to the designer of the pattern. To add to that, the buyer becomes a third partner in the collaboration by having to make-up the garment. If you do make a garment with a knit-kit and let us know, we will send a photographer to take a picture of what you’ve made so that we can create a webpage of people in the community who have made something with a Fibershed knit-kit.  

I’ve also been working on dye-kits, as I farmed this summer with them in mind. I’ll be coming out with a dye kit for a cuddly toy squid before the holidays; it will include yarn from a farmer 11 miles from me, which was milled in nearby Yolo County, a knitting pattern (for a beginner), a few ounces of dried coreopsis flowers, a ball mason jar and a booklet with dyeing instructions. So basically, you can put your yarn in the mason jar, pour the dye solution on it and it should turn orange overnight, so then you can start knitting! 

Have you been able to reach out to other communities in helping them set up their own fibershed?

We would love to do more of that but the full sum of it is mostly on our Facebook page. I get over 100 emails daily related to the Fibershed Project, which is a lot, but there are a few people in other sates looking to connect to like-minded people in their area. I try to help them out if I know how but we should really just establish a network for people with interest to connect. 

What is your long-term aim with the Fibershed Project?

I believe the Bay Area could grow everything it needs; it is such a fertile region. I envision a time when people in this area can walk through the fields to understand where their fibers come from and in school, children can make their own dyes for colored paints from plants grown here. I think that we can and will shift to a subsistent agricultural economy and then textile production will come back to the West so that more regions will supply themselves. I see the Fibershed Project being as much about education as it is about re-skilling.

The heart of Fibershed came from a deep inspiration through Native American studies. I assisted ethnoecologist Kat Anderson from UC Davis at a workshop with a tribe north of me, where they were learning how to harvest wild foods. I helped her with the slideshow for the workshop, and one slide was a Venn diagram of the philosophy that indigenous cultures have where biological context and finished goods have a small gap. So I think of a fibershed as closing the gap between biological context and the final piece, which reduces what I call exploitation chasm. I think this exploitation chasm is used by a lot of large corporations through greenwashing, because it is really utilizing the distance from the production of the goods consumers buy to the disadvantage of our well-being.

 

You can find out how to  contact the farms involved in the Fibershed Project through the Fibershed Directory or even visit them by becoming a fan of their Facebook  page, where related events are posted on a regular basis. Rebecca will be inviting people to her current dye garden site in West Marin for tours of her composting bed before the holidays, and is relocating to a more public and accessible site for next year’s farming season.

Make sure to check out the Fibershed Project Marketplace, where you can see finished products of the brilliant collaborations born of this adventure. If you’re interested in setting up your own fibershed, read their page on advice for how to do so. Rebecca’s personal site is also a fascinating one, and definitely worth a browse for more inspiration.

 

Images courtesy of Paige Green for The Fibershed Project.