Sustainable Cloth: Farm to Home and Closet

Join us for a year of making textiles together!
Let’s inspire, explore and support making textiles from local fiber, local dye, and local labor.

Our Sustainable Cloth Challenge supports our goals of educating ourselves and our communities, raising our collective awareness, introducing or reinforcing new habits of consuming, fostering a sense of community, and connecting fiber producers to markets.

Want to join our 2023 Sustainable Cloth Challenge? Click here to register 

See the 2022 projects in our ebook here

 

Sustainable Cloth Resources

Local Designer Resources

The challenge: Repurpose or create a wearable or household item from materials within our fibershed.

There are three ways to participate:

 

  • Embrace…our place.   After a year of “staying” in place, we are perhaps even more poised to celebrate and acknowledge the rich resources and capacities available in our immediate surroundings.  Embrace this research stream if you are ready to work with only local fibers, local natural dyes, and local talent to create your textile item. 
    • All materials must be farmed and processed within our fibershed.
    • Fibers must be natural.
    • Dyeing must use natural and non-synthetic compounds.
    • Patterns must be original or sourced from local designers.
    • Notions (threads, buttons, zippers, etc.) from outside our fibershed are allowed.

  • Re-envision…our resources.  Extending the life of our existing textiles plays an important role in reducing global textile waste.   Re-envision a new life for existing textiles by taking a deep dive into clothing and home good restoration through the artistic and time-honored practices of mending and repurposing.  Share your stories through documentation of where and how the original cloth was sourced and made, noting how your materials and methods create a new path towards sustainability for that cloth.  Re-envision naturally!
    • Repurposed materials must be purchased or found within our fibershed
    • Provenance  of  the repurposed cloth must be documented either by an attached label or personally attested history.
    • Added components must be repurposed goods.
    • Notions (threads, buttons, zippers, etc.) from outside our fibershed are allowed.

  • Borrow…across our boundaries.   Sometimes growth requires compromise and the help of neighbors.  You may need to extend beyond the Chesapeake Fibershed boundaries in order to source all the materials needed for your project.   
    • A minimum of fifty percent (50%) of your materials must be farmed and processed within our fibershed.
    • Materials from outside our fibershed must be sourced from within the United States.  The source of, and need for, these materials must be documented.
    • Notions (threads, buttons, zippers, etc.) from outside our fibershed are allowed.

Need more information? Click this link to see the PDF of our introductory session.

Ready to join in? Complete this google form to get started.  We will add you to our mailing list to keep you up to date about the challenge meetings, resources and community.

Need fiber or skills, check out our resource page.

Join our Facebook group  here to share your work, ideas and questions.