Rebecca Burgess (1)

I loved Fibershed and found it so inspiring. There is so much useful research in this book. It really shines a light on how unsustainable our current clothing industry is, and how recently this change has happened, whilst also encouraging the reader to think differently. It also offers examples of people who are making a difference in their own local communities.

I made the switch to natural fibers a few years ago and started making more of my own clothes with linen and cotton fabrics. I began learning to knit and to spin yarn and sourced some local, raw alpaca fleeces that I have been gradually transforming into wearable items. I have a few things that I have died with natural materials thus far - some pink linen dyed with avocado (I will likely make a dress with it) and some gray linen died with rosemary and tea that I am sewing into an apron now. This book made me want to expand on this practice and focus on having fewer items in my wardrobe, but an overall wardrobe comprised of heirloom-quality, well made pieces that support my local fiber shed as much as possible (without harming the ecology) and that tell a story of connection. It has been a dream of mine for years to grow enough flax one year to process, weave, and turn into a dress. Reading Fibershed has encouraged me in this and shown me that it is possible and there are people doing it! I should say, though, that we don't all have to go to this extreme to make a positive change, and the author does make that clear.

Some people will find the idea of sourcing a wardrobe from their own local fibershed difficult, either because of where they live or because most clothing these days is made overseas. I would encourage such readers to think of their fibershed, then, as being a larger area than the one the author was able to focus on in her experiment. She was living in an agricultural region in an agricultural, multicultural state with a lot of craftspeople and farmers. If you do not, think about expanding that radius for your own experiment. Even if you limited yourself only to items made and produced in your own country, you would still be sourcing from a fibershed much more local than one overseas!

I found myself reading portions of this book aloud to my husband, who has since said that he wants to read the book himself next, and I already sent a copy to a relative who has recently become interested in transitioning their wardrobe to natural fibers. Highly recommend!… (mais)

In 2010, I joined the Slow Money movement—a movement focused on moving investment money into local food systems. Not long after, I asked the founder, Woody Tasch, "what about all the other aspects of a local economy; will Slow Money expand some day beyond food?" Tasch responded in the affirmative; that food systems are the place to start, but that of course local economies need more than just food.

Ten years later, it seems that the nascent regional manufacturing movement is surging, and Rebecca Burgess is one of the leading lights. Burgess is the founder of a non-profit bearing the same name. Derived from the pattern found in the word "watershed," a "Fibershed" encompasses a bioregional perspective on textiles.

Burgess frames the narrative from both poles. On the one hand, she paints the potential of the vivacity of what our lives and relationship with land and each other could look like. On the other, she catalogs the unconscionable damage wrought by the conventional fiber industry—from the carcinogenic nature of aniline dyes to the micro-plastics pollution explosion resultant of synthetic fibers.

In this book, you'll learn not only about fiber production from "soil to skin" (such as wool, linen, cotton, hemp, and nettle)—but also about other aspects of textile production, especially natural dying.

For Burgess, her vocation in building fibersheds (first in California, and now as an advocate for fibersheds nationally and around the world) was inspired by her commitment to source all of her fibers locally for a year. Along the way, in a story you'll hear recounted in these pages, Burgess became swept up by the nascent local fiber community, and decided to get her hands dirty in helping build the infrastructure (physical and cultural) necessary to bring about a revolution in what we wear.

I've had a personal fascination with local fiber myself for many years. The sheepskin of a friend's farm graces my desk chair. I've been purchasing shirts from Rambler's Way since their founding—a company mentioned by Burgess in this book. I have denim handcrafted in Hartford, CT (not far from my home in Western Mass) by HarDenCo. And I repair my jeans with countless patches before eventually retiring them.

This book has come out at the perfect time—highlighting the farmers, craftspeople, and artists, bringing about a new way of clothing ourselves.… (mais)

Nice photographs, and an immensely interesting topic - doing the "locavore" thing for textiles. But the text! I admit I skimmed a lot. I just could not focus. I was consistently amazed at how the authors could make such a fascinating topic such a dull slog of a read. Growing flax for linen, naturally colored cotton, natural dyestuffs, alpaca cooperatives - every time I turned to a new chapter about something I thought "now THIS is finally going to get interesting," nope. Another page of text I could not get through.

Too bad, because it is a fun topic. As someone who raises fiber animals and makes yarn and loves weaving, I could be and should be the first to be all gung-ho about local textile production. But there seem to be lots of reasons it's different from food, in terms of the future of truly localized sourcing and production. Reasons they didn't really get into in this book. Or maybe they did. Honestly, I can't be sure.… (mais)