Yarn that's Certified Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World

     A Greener World (AGW) has a directory of products that are Certified Animal Welfare Approved, certified by them.  According to their site, "It is the only label in the U.S. to require audited, high-welfare production, transport and slaughter practices."  They put an emphasis on animals being on pasture or range their entire lives.
     The categories in the directory include fibre for handspinning into yarn.  The directory allows you to search by proximity, if local fibre matters to you, or you can search the entire thing.  The listings I saw only referred to fibre or wool, they didn't specify forms such as yarn or roving.  I believe only one offered online shopping.  It sells yarn.  The rest provided a physical address.  Presumably you could write to to inquire about mail order, though you're probably meant to go to their farm gate to shop.
     If you know of a fibre farmer whose work meets the criteria, and who isn't certified and in the directory already, you can suggest her name to AGW here.  AGW also has other categories of vendors, such as farmers' markets.
     AGW's standards for sheep are here.  Mulesing is prohibited, and "The primary methods of preventing parasite infestations must be pasture management or rotation and bedding management and removal."  The standards prohibit tail docking, dehorning, disbudding, and ear marking by cutting or notching.  They prohibit any trap but a live trap for predators, with lethal control of predators as a last resort.  They prohibit the use of hot prods or electric shocks.  (I don't think this applies to electric fences.)
     I think the standards mean a flock of wethers is out: "Ram lambs may only be castrated when uncontrolled breeding cannot be prevented by any other management."  From what I've heard, ram lambs are often sent to slaughter while ewe lambs are kept for breeding.  I've also heard that traditionally wethers' wool was considered prized, as the wool is less pungent than rams' wool and in better condition than ewes' wool.  Ewes go through stress from lambing and their wool shows the results of that stress.  The one exception to the traditional preference for wethers' wool that I've read about was where ram's wool traditionally was kept for a certain purpose, I can't remember what, for some reason such as durability, but again I can't remember what.  I think that was in a Nordic country and might have been for nalbinding or rya rugs.  Anyway.  Notwithstanding traditional practices regarding wool production, and notwithstanding that a ram might rather be a wether than lunch, I guess AGW considers castration of rams something to be avoided.
     This bit was interesting: "14.0.6 Animals must not be displayed or offered for sale or transfer at farmers markets, swap meets or similar venues.  Note: Delivery or exchange of animals at a farmers market or similar venue when the sale or transfer has been pre-arranged may be acceptable."  Never would have occurred to me that anyone would try to sell a sheep at a farmers' market.  I have heard of people arranging for delivery of fibre animals in odd locations.

The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel. - Proverbs 12:10 NIV

Fibershed Interview on Conscious Chatter Podcast

     Kestrel Jenkin's Conscious Chatter podcast has an interview with Rebecca Burgess, director of Fibershed.  S03, episode 118, "Fibershed + Regenerative Textile Systems," June 12, 2018, http://consciouschatter.com/podcast/2018/06/11/s03-episode-118-fibershed-regenerative-textile-systems.  Available on iTunes.
     Good stories, technical details, and the issues around the making of small batch, traceable, community-based, natural textiles, as always.
     Fibershed serves two groups: producers and buyers.  This podcast is focussed mostly on the production side of local cloth and leaves recommendations for buyers until the last several minutes.  Unless I missed it, Burgess did not cover options such as taking yarn from a farm and either making clothes yourself or commissioning a weaver or knitter to make you clothing with it.  It was more about looking for local ready-to-wear, wearing clothes longer and mending them, and recirculating used clothing.
     This is an interesting choice considering the success Burgess had with the Fibershed wardrobe she commissioned for herself.  In the YouTube video, "150 mile wardrobe: local fiber, real color, P2P economy," she says she never wants to go back to conventional clothes.  I'm not sure why she omitted the option to commission work.  Perhaps she considered the amount of time and money involved to be too much to ask.  She was able to fund the wardrobe through Kickstarter, through her Funding Fibershed - One Year-150 Miles campaign in 2010.
     Burgess is a weaver and natural dyer with a spinning wheel.  In the YouTube interview she says she commissioned the Fibershed wardrobe because she didn't have the time to make it herself, which is understandable.  Furthermore, she wanted the wardrobe made in order to build relationships with the ranchers, cotton breeders, felters, knitters, and mills in her region.

Excited for PNW Fibershed's System Map

     Well, this is exciting!  Pacific Northwest Fibershed now has a map of producers of local fibre, local dyes, and local labour at www.bit.ly/Fibershed-crowdmap.  It's called Mapping the Domestic Fiber System, and it's on Google.  It's done in partnership with Ecotrust.
     While Pacific Northwest Fibershed is primarily concerned with producers in its own region, it appears that the map is meant to cover the whole United States.  At least, there are entries from other places.
     Appears that to qualify for a producer listing, you don't need to fall into an official Fibershed affiliate area or need membership in an affiliate.  This is a boon to regions like mine which are only partially covered and lack a producer program.  But, as they say on Air Farce, I'm not bitter.
     Do you produce Fibershed goods or services?  The map is crowd-sourced, so you can add your listing.
     Do you buy local fibre, local dyes, local milling and spinning services, local patterns, local tools, local knitting, weaving, dyeing, or design services, local seeds for dyes or fibre, local fibre arts books, or local fibre arts instruction?  Please give the link to your sources and urge them to add a listing.
     I am still trying to clothe myself with pieces made with natural fibre, plant-based dyes (or naturally-coloured fibre), and fair labour in order to make my life more eco-friendly, beautiful, comfortable, and interesting.  Traceable local materials or labour are a bonus.  So if you're on the map, I might buy from you.  My stack of real indigo J.Crew tees are getting a little faded and shabby.

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?

The Urge to Show and Tell

     A couple of women were sifting through the bowl of my yarn-themed pin back buttons at a market a while back, laughing and pointing out the sayings to each other.  "That's so X!" they said about the "freshly handknit, please admire" button, referring to someone in their knitting group they found overly enthusiastic about show and tell.
     "Is she a new knitter?" I asked.  When I first learned to spin and knit, I would bring my finished items to the attention of the more experienced handspinners I knew.  It was a way to say, I heard what you said to do, I applied it as best I could, and it's very exciting.
     When I show and tell now, I'm more saying, this is possible, this is a result I'm after for these reasons, this is a benefit I'm trying to get through yarn, you can do this too.  Here is a display I did at a local farmers' market recently:

display for handspinning, knitting, weaving

     It wasn't a patch on the other handspinner's display, though.  She had a piece of brown un-dyed cotton cloth she grew, spun, and wove.  She also had flax on a spindle.  Sometime I have to get a photo of her in her homegrown, handspun, handwoven green cotton vest.

homegrown un-dyed cotton handspun and handwoven into cloth

     I am still working out the dynamics of traffic flow and weather for public demonstrations of fibre arts.  I really should have put up a tarp wall on the sunny side.  We were at the rear of the tent avoiding the sun and it was awkward to greet passersby from back there.  Shade might have helped us bear the humidity; hot weather makes it hard to spin wool.  The tables should have been in a line off to the side rather than an L at the front of the booth.  Sound is also an issue.  We were set up across from a dozen ukuleles with amplifiers.  So, fun but challenging.

The Simple, Complicated, and Complex

The rate at which I do fibre arts projects, it can vary.

I'll stall and drop momentum until I can get help or get in that useful state where desire for the finished object exceeds the reluctance to face the technical problem.  It is usually a technical problem, like getting gauge or sourcing materials.

Simple and small or weird and complex with original stuff to figure out, somehow with those I'll move along at a good constant clip.  I've made quite a few babies happy this year with Norwegian Sweet Baby caps.  I tried weaving overshot and found it as easy as promised.  My experiments in the technique of språng were diverting.  Unfortunately they are the sort of projects that don't get me moving directly toward my goals.  If velocity matters, value matters too.  I want finished objects for me.  Actual wearable clothing, not accessories, for me, out of local traceable materials that are naturally coloured.  Anything else is practice.

What I want is complicated, by which I mean complicated to achieve.  It means a narrow choice of materials, long-term projects, and realization of a specific aesthetic and fit.

I have begun a sweater for me, in natural grey Romney commercial aran yarn from the Salt Spring Island Wool Co.  I picked Alice Starmore and Anne Matheson's Cullercoats, a cabled sweater pattern published in the early 80s.  The cables and border designs are attractive, the lines are dated.  I mentioned the pattern on this blog a few years ago, writing, "I don't know if I have the high level of understanding and stern degree of determination I would need in order to alter it to suit my taste."  

I've written the modifications, I've gotten gauge, and I've started a sleeve.

Norwegian Sweet Baby cap, swatch for sweater

SSI Wool Co.'s sheep pasture with Romneys

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.

Spun Sample of Romney Hogget

I spun samples of a teased lock of hogget wool to get an idea of the yarn I can get from it.  The wool is undyed Romney, from Vancouver Island, B.C.  If I read the label correctly, the sheep's name was Dewey.

Suitability of yarn depends on its end use so when I pick I need to consider that as much as what's pretty.

Let's set end use aside for a minute, because my mind shies away from pinning down exactly what I want to do with the wool.  I got four pounds of brown hogget plus another pound of darker Romney hogget.  Have never bought anywhere near this much of any one fibre before.  With this and an additional five pounds of white Hampshire cross, I probably doubled my wool on hand.  I'm somewhere between "whoa" and "now we're getting somewhere."

I think the thick sample looks nice.

When I bought the Hampshire cross (not shown), the miller brought out a selection of down breeds for me to choose from.  If memory serves they were Dorset, Dorset cross, Clun Forest, Suffolk, and Suffolk crossed with Rambouillet.  All locally raised.  All pre-washed, a feature I love.

When I've bought from shepherds I've gotten fewer wool breeds to select from.  When I've bought from a store-front or online supply shop I've paid more per pound.

ruler, for scale

100 Mile Suit blog

Here's an blog link, http://100-milesuit.blogspot.com/.  I think it's interesting first, because they made a suit almost entirely within a hundred miles and second, because the blog records correspondence between the suppliers, craftsmen, and organizer.  You hear ideas in their own voices and get a sense of the process.

Coordination of the work seems to have been as much of an accomplishment as production of the suit was.

Rebecca Burgess' Fibershed Project

I am reading this blog, http://fibershed.wordpress.com.  Rebecca Burgess has set herself the challenge of only wearing clothing sourced from 150 miles around her.  That's fibre, dyes, milling or prep, fabric construction, tailoring, everything done close to home.  She aims to promote and reestablish local custom milling in her area in order to restore jobs, give artisanal fibre growers a place for processing material, and divert local meat sheep wool from the waste stream.  She demonstrates a high level of understanding of the local materials available to her through her use of natural, local dyestuffs and naturally-coloured fibres.  Examples include brown alpaca fibre, fennel or oak gall dye baths, and coloured cotton varieties from Sally Fox, breeder of Foxfibre.  By wearing unconventional clothing, Burgess opens a conversation about water pollution and occupational hazards from synthetic dyes, something she says she saw first-hand while travelling in Asia.

The results look stylish and her many collaborative projects make for vicarious thrills and aspirational reading.  The public reaction she gets is really something, both in comments posted on the website and from passersby in real life.  About a felted alpaca coat, the author posts on 2nd March, 2011, "it seems everyone dies for it when I'm walking down the street...there is some longing and pain involved when they realize it is not off the rack."

If you like to listen to podcasts and streaming audio while you spin yarn, Burgess has given some interviews: "Radical Ideas: Grow Your Own Farm-fresh Wardrobe," Crosscurrents from KALW News, June 8, 2011; "The Fibershed Project: Living One Year in Locally Grown Clothes," Sustainable World Radio, Oct 28, 2010*; and "The Fibershed Project," Cultural Energy, April 19, 2010.


*click on the little POD icon at the top left to stream audio if you don't wish to download the mp3 file.

ETA: the new Fibershed website is http://www.fibershed.com/.  Burgess also has a lot of online content at http://ecologicalartist.wordpress.com/.

Alternative Systems

If only we can move beyond the oversimplistic definitions of cheap food, we can change the current system.  In practical terms, what this means is shifting shopping patterns to follow three main principles: local, seasonal and direct...Keeping alive alternative systems of distribution is one of the most important things individuals can do in the face of ever-growing retail concentration.  That, and ensuring farmers get a fairer share from our shopping so they can survive.
Felicity Lawrence, Not On The Label: What Really Goes Into the Food on Your Plate

The system for food has changed somewhat since Lawrence's book was published in 2004.  There is comparatively little sense of urgency out there about changing the system for clothing.

There are difficulties in transferring her call to action to clothing.

The alternative systems of distribution for clothing were dismantled and abandoned much earlier and to a greater extent than those for food.  It's been a long time since the black sheep made direct sales of wool to the little boy who lives down the lane.  Peru is the only place I've heard of that retains a vibrant alternative system of clothing production and sales.

You can argue that in the West there is not nearly the monopolistic control on the sale of clothing as there is on the sale of food (especially after you read in Not On the Label how monopolistic that control is), and I will agree that there are probably more large clothing retailers competing for your dollar than there are large supermarket chains.

Try and see what proportion of your diet you can fill with the 100 mile diet principles, and then try and see if you can be clothed at all on a 100 mile fiber diet.  Go to the nearest farm gate and see whether they want to sell you raw materials to stock your pantry or your wardrobe.

Ask how many of your friends have brewed beer at home or tried bread-making or canned some fresh-caught salmon and then ask how many have knit their own mitts.  Look at their fishing rods and garden spades, then search their spare rooms for spinning wheels and looms.  Challenge them to go to the nearest bank of clay and stand of trees and come back with a drop spindle and warp-weighted loom.  Quiz them on the location of the nearest blackberry patch, then ask about the nearest fibre animal or plant.

My guildmate and I were asked at the farmers' market if handspinning was gaining popularity.  We weren't sure.

I am spinning yarn and trying to learn to make my own clothes from the fiber up.  I consider myself to be a pretty mainstream, conventional person.  Alternative, underground scenes only hold my interest in a train-wreck, fleeting sort of way.  I am not out to overthrow anything.

I want a resurgence in our capacity to produce and to trade on a peer-to-peer basis.  That's the part of capitalism that captures my imagination, the means to control production.  My rather idealistic sympathies are with the small independent producer, and in my idealism I lean toward egalitarianism.  I would like everyone to be proficient at handspinning and making handspun clothes.  Then we'd have a basis for a workable alternative system.  Realistically, I just don't think the economic incentive or the cultural mood is there right now.

I've only recently started wanting an alternative system to meet our need for food and clothing.  I used to think the conventional system of clothing manufacture and distribution was pretty smart.  I thought it met our needs quite well with little trouble.  I thought it was the only civilized way to go.  I see it differently now.  I think the conventional system lacks resiliency, is exploitative, creates a lot of waste, and floods markets, which undermines competition and sovereignty.  Even if climate change and Peak Oil doomsayers' dire predictions come to nothing and the clothes keep coming in the ordinary way, there will still be issues and areas where the conventional system fails to meet a lot of needs.

And, yes, thank you, I am aware how many handspun-wearing ancient civilizations were exploitative and monopolistic.

eighteenth skein in waiting

"Bobby" roving, very springy to the touch, from Anna Runnings' Qualicum Bay Fibre Works. Runnings raised this fibre, as well as prepared it, so hearing about the sheep that produced the wool was an added bonus when I bought it from her.

I transferred about an ounce of singles to each bobbin on the kate, wrapping the bobbins by hand from the drop spindle.

Next step is three ply. Have never done three ply. Am on tenterhooks.

Here is a close up of one of the bobbins of singles. On my spinner's gauge, it averaged around 16-18. I was hoping to make sock yarn because the roving is so springy.

Terry from our guild had a look at the singles and said they would probably ply up fairly bulky. Not sure if there is such a thing as bulky sock yarn.

Pair-a-Dice Farm Handspun and Roving

Was wandering around a farmers' market last week, munching on a bunch of radishes, when I met Joe Hollick of Pair-a-Dice Farm in Lunenburg, VA. His booth had a selection of dyed yarn spun by Dawn Hollick.

I immediately asked if he had roving for sale.

The Hollicks sell roving. While Joe did not have any on hand to show me, he did present a binder of photos that showed how they process the wool. They scour the wool in a dedicated machine, use a manual picking machine, put the fibre through a small industrial drum carder, and spin on (what looks from the flyer close up) a regular treadle-operated spinning machine. You can see the same presentation of their processing online here.

I hope you can see the range of dyed colours available:



And in other farmers' market and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) news, I hear a rumour in the blogosphere that fibre CSAs are available. Think of it! Sign up for fibre and have it delivered just like a vegetable box scheme. There's at least one listed on the Local Harvest website.

A Very Canadian Nostepinne

While on holiday on Vancouver Island, Canada I went to see a friend of the family who turns wood.

He kindly made me a beautiful nostepinne out of curly maple.

The tree had grown within a mile of his workshop. He waxed the nostepinne with beeswax that also came from the area through a beekeeper he knew.

Here he is checking the diameter:


Wax on (wax off):
Action shot: ETA: I now find a large knitting needle has a better balance.

"On with the Scutching."

Pictured above you can see the flax processing hand tools at the Frontier Culture museum’s German farm. From right to left: flax break, scutching board and knife dangling from the board, and hackles. You can see these tools used, in that order, in the museum’s Youtube video by Dave.

You want your own, don’t you! I intend to go back and take measurements.

Here's a close up of the museum's scutching knife, shown with optional chicken accessory:


You can see, below, the scutching knife my estimable father fashioned for me, with its nifty handle that fits my fingers. If you click to enlarge, you'll see that the curved blade follows the actual grain of the wood, which is arbutus. (Americans call the tree madrona.)

When I requested this scutching knife, I had only seen the Frontier Culture museum’s video and diagrams in Elsie G. Davenport’s Your Handspinning and Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s Prehistoric Textiles. Now that I’ve seen one in person, I would go a lot thinner all around, and flatten and bevel the blade.

The museum's German-style scutching knife blade is about two feet long and two inches wide, with a rounded blade edge. There are a couple others at the Irish farm exhibit which are much more hefty and crude looking.

The museum's flax break has metal bars under the handle, but you can just use wood like the flax break in the museum’s Irish farm. The top piece is quite heavy. Dave pointed out to me that the weight takes advantage of the force of gravity in breaking flax stems, but takes effort to operate. He also said that, ergonomically, the height of the scutching board suits him better than the lower board at the Irish farm.

Ergonomics are important because the whole process takes effort. Karen, at the museum, said that one handful of retted flax takes twenty minutes for a quality product, but most people don’t take that long. After seeing Karen’s beautiful result,

I felt my efforts at breaking, scutching, and hackling were pretty shabby.

You don’t get a lot to spin at the end either. Karen recalled ten pounds of stalks that produced just nine ounces of line flax for her, along with the shorter tow fibres and the coarse stuff suitable for rope.

Back to equipment, I was interested to see that Gene Logsdon, in his second edition of Small Scale Grain Raising, describes each tool in his section on flax. It would have been nice if he had mentioned that flax comes in different varieties, some of which grow taller. He does mention seeding close together for the tallest stalks with the fewest side branches.

Tall flax means a longer line, and a longer line gets you closer to recreating the Egyptian splicing method, which would let me skip having to draft from a distaff and that is all to the good since I failed at drafting flax so miserably yesterday. But my obsession with the Egyptian splicing method (as described in Barber’s Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years and Prehistoric Textiles) and my hopes of getting my multi-talented father to throw and fire me a flax-wetting bowl patterned after archealogical finds, ah, that will be a blog story for another day.

I first found reference to the tall variety of flax on Ravelry, where someone recommended the Landis Valley Museum as a source of seed. Dave told me that the Frontier Culture museum’s fields are planted with seed saved from an original purchase at Landis Valley.

I come from a country that grows flax commercially for oil and seed. The Flax Council of Canada’s Website states that flax stems are used for specialty paper, but could be used for bio-fuel, pulp sweeteners that increase the times wood fibre can be recycled in paper, geotextiles to combat soil erosion, building insulation, and plastic composites such as car dashboards. The Flax Council also mentions flax for textiles, as long line flax and cottonized flax. Cottonized flax is an interesting application because it takes advantage of the common industrial equipment for processing cotton fibres and applies it to flax beaten into its smallest consitutent fibres. Cottonized flax is not a do-it-yourself proposition, though.

Given my attachment to the 100 Mile Fibre Diet concept, I am both optimistic and apprehensive about the possibilities of growing flax for hand spinning on Vancouver Island. The cool climate should be a treat for flax. On the other hand, the only commercial supplier I know of that sells the variety of seed I want is located in the United States, so how am I going to get what I want above the border? Perhaps Agriculture Canada would let the seeds through, I don’t know. I’m also attached to a Vancouver Island free of invasive plants, so I support border restrictions.

100 Mile Fibre Diet

Most reasons for being a locavore translate into being a local consumer with fibre—the fibre you wear, not eat. Buy locally-raised wool or alpaca that is processed at a local mill, and you promote local agriculture, business, and industry. Know the shepherd who keeps the flock, know the animal by name, and you can assure yourself how well the fibre was raised. You also get an interesting relationship that most people don’t have with their clothing suppliers. Develop distinct local goods and material culture (think Cowichan sweater), and you increase regional pride and marketing opportunities. Buy direct from a producer and you could get better quality at a better price. A 100 Mile Fibre Diet can greatly reduce the fossil fuel used in transportation from source to end user, lowering your carbon footprint if that’s your goal.

By buying local, you can also reduce another sort of carbon: carbonization, the large wool processors’ technique of using sulfuric acid and heat to reduce burrs in wool to ash so that there are no prickly bits in your woolens. Small, local mills leave vegetable matter in the roving or crush it with rollers into tiny bits. Conceivably, this technique has a more beneficial impact on the environment and on mill operators who don’t have to work on-site with caustic chemicals. Might have less impact on you as well, since wool put through carbonization is scratchier than wool that hasn’t. Barring the burrs, naturally.

The 100 Mile Fibre Diet is a challenge to the established norm, a challenge to your ability to stick to it—and may I say, food is worse because you must have a variety of food but you can get along without that tussah silk that is calling your name—and a challenge to your skills. Yes, skills. Think of those locavores who pick up gardening and cooking and grain grinding and pickling and gleaning and seed saving. If the only wool in your area is on critters destined to give birth to future frozen locker lamb chops (that is, raised for meat and not wool), you may find yourself with a clothespin on your nose hunched over diagrams trying to figure out what exactly “skirting a fleece” and “scouring” mean in real life. Other enthusiasts are planting flax in the garden and talking about harvesting nettles to spin.

You don’t just acquire skills and knowledge, either. Processing a fleece or a hank of retted flax takes specialized tools. I know, I’ve borrowed tools and tried. In my quest for the ultimate local fibre experience, I’ve ventured to get some flax and wool processing hand tools made on Vancouver Island, B.C.. I live in hope of more.

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.