Selvedge Magazine and me . . . we're like 'THAT'

 Every once in a while something really fun and unexpected happens!  Back at the beginning of 2011, I received an email from Polly Leonard.  Polly Leonard is the editor of "Selvedge Magazine", a magazine published in the UK.  In their 'About' section online they describe the magazine as follows:  "Selvedge is a design-led, 100 page, bi-monthly magazine that covers every facet of textiles – interiors, fashion, art, craft, travel and shopping – in an intelligent and inspiring way.  Founded in 2003 the magazine revolutionised the way textiles are presented and quickly became the world’s leading textile publication. Six times a year we cover textiles made with time, thought and skill in a magazine produced in exactly the same way – with quality writing, stunning photography and original illustration. Focusing on textiles doesn’t mean we turn our back on the rest of the world... the exact opposite is true. We see the world though a textile lens but cast our eye far and wide looking for links between our subject and achievements in other fields from architecture to archeology. More flexible than other textile magazines – Selvedge fits seamlessly into a creative lifestyle."

Sounds pretty awesome, huh?!  Well, Polly Leonard wrote to me asking if they could mention Väva! Veve! in their magazine.  As far as I was concerned, they didn't even have to ASK!  And could I please have 2 MILLION copies?!!  Polly explained that she had been perusing Etsy.com and she wanted to feature her favorites!  So, I picked myself up off the floor, and wrote back saying that of course she could and what did she need from me.  We worked all that out, but you know?  I never mentioned it in my blog~

So here is Editor Polly Leonard's Etsy faves featured in Selvedge Magazine!  I'm #11!  Wheeze! Cough!  Snort!!

Local Sourcing and Fibershed.com

We are finally seeing some sunshine here in Minnesota, after more than a week of dull gray, low ceiling clouds.  People have been getting pretty crabby without the sunshine, so today is a special day for everyone!! 

 It is like being reborn!  It is joy in a sunbeam!!  Today people will be in such a good mood!  Perhaps springtime has finally reached us.  (it snowed this past week!)  

Such unpredictable and unusual weather!  This is why I am working with Fibershed.com and involved in getting our textile industry back to our country.  We need to change some basic ideas in order to shift our current impact on climate change!  I am currently working with Rebecca Burgess, the founding member and Executive Director of http://www.fibershed.com, and Dustin Kahn, also of Fibershed, and second in command, to develop the fiber community in the United States.  Besides having a good and huge impact on the greenness of the textile industry, my motivation is to eventually establish the first linen fiber mill in the United States since the Civil War!  I don't know that 'local' linen will be any less expensive in terms of $$ but I do know it will cost the earth a lot less in terms of fuel used for shipping, not to mention the horrible working conditions forced on people in 3rd World countries.  We have a lot of work ahead of us before we can approach my linen mill dream however.

Currently we are researching and working on the Hemp project, establishing it's uses, setting up farmers willing to grow it, finding out what equipment is needed for harvesting, and processing hemp into fiber, and learning about the characteristics of hemp blended with other fibers.  It will help reduce the carbon footprint of such a massive industry.  And by connecting farmers to local processing mills to small local textile mills to the end users, we are creating a small economic hub with a very small carbon footprint.  Also by encouraging farmers to grow organically, and by encouraging the mills to process with little waste, again we are reducing our carbon footprint.  By doing this, we will help reduce the carbon footprint of a very massive industry.  It is an incredible opportunity to work with people so concerned about our earth and to actually be making a difference!

I recently gathered a group of accomplished fiber artists to tour a newly established northern Minnesota woolen mill located in Fosston, MN to find out about the various machinery used in processing wool, and to learn a bit more about what type of machine would be needed to blend hemp and wool.  The mill is aptly called Northern Woolen Mill and after a 4 hour drive we finally arrived, late and a bit disheveled.  But the energetic owner of the mill, Stephanie Anderson still took the time to take us around the whole operation, telling stories of the birth of a new woolen mill. Some of the stories were humorous, some were agonizing, but all helped us to see the determination, creativity, genius and sometimes just pure luck that Stephanie Anderson has had in starting this new business of hers.


Stephanie is explaining how she heard about a place where bison were being raised for meat, but were burning the hides. She negotiated a deal where she bought the hides, and is now processing bison fiber into yarn. Bison fiber, that is taken when the winter coat is thick, is as soft as cashmere! Her mill is also singular in accepting black fleece.


First stop is the receiving dock, where we saw bags and bags of various fleeces. Here Heidi Goldberg, Professor of Art at Concordia, listens to the stories being told by Stephanie.

 

The washing room has a screened surface as a picking station on the right where organic animal matter and vegetation is removed from the fleece to ready it for washing. Sharon Marquardt and Charlie Hovde view the Washing Room.

The impressive array of sink stations available for different fleeces is located on the other side of the room.

The large dye vat and table are just the start of the dye lab that Stephanie envisions.

 
 
 

As we proceed into the drying room, we are struck with a wall of heat. The right side of the room was lined with racks of merino that had been washed and were drying overnight. 

 The left side of the Drying Room was lined with racks drying multiple levels of Bison fiber.

 

Each piece of equipment throughout this facility was often designed on-site, put together on-site, and even constructed on-site.

Stephanie told one story that would have made most people walk away from this project in defeat. It left me absolutely amazed at this slight woman's strength of character and determination. She had contracted with a man who's credentials she had thoroughly vetted, to find the various machines she needed, bring them to the facility, put them together and teach her staff how to use them. Well, she got most of the equipment, but the man skipped the country, and she was left with crates of machine parts.

 What she does next is amazing! She decides that the only thing to do is to dump each crate out on the floor and try to figure out how to put it together. Each machine's operator was empowered in this process by now knowing exactly how their machine works, down to each nut and bolt!

This Roller Machine is next in the line-up. It takes the picked and cleaned wool fiber and rolls it in a combing action through 6 different rollers, with each pass processing the fiber to a higher, cleaner state each time, until it comes out the end in what is called a sliver, which is about a 4" X 2" fluffy batting of fibers all running in the same direction.

 This sliver is inserted into a combing machine, for further alignment.

The sliver runs down this channel and through the combs, coming out the other end as roving.

This is one of the Spinning Machines, spinning the roving into yarn. Yarn can come in either an 'S' or a 'Z' twist, which can be done to order at this mill.

Bobbins at the ready by the Spinning Machine 

 Bobbins needed for the spinning and plying process.

Dawn Tommerdahl inspecting a spinning/plying machine.

Some of the freshly spun and plied yarn is wound onto cones via this Cone Winding Machine. Cones are usually used by professionals needing yarn in larger quantities, in an easy form to use. 

 Other yarn is wound into skeins for use by hand knitters and other fiber artists. 

We learned so much during our trip to Northern Woolen Mills, and I plan on going again, if only to luxuriate in the wonderful yarns made there!  

They are spinning wool yarn for Bemidji Woolen Mills, and spinning private label yarn, and they even have spun yarn for Ann Taylor! They are experimenting with Bison (which surprisingly is as soft as cashmere!), They need to get a few suppliers who can provide enough wool on an ongoing basis to last throughout the year. I am hoping to work with Stephanie in the future to see if we can get a Hemp blending experiment off the ground.

Northern Woolen Mill has been featured on CNBC!  'Crazy' innovative: How one entrepreneur is reviving 'Made in USA' wool

GO STEPH!!  

Linen Bath Towel in the Damask design.  Natural Color with Cornflower Blue accent.

An ancient solution to our modern-day global warming?

I am in the middle of reading the book, "Hooked!  Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume" as edited by Stephanie Kaza.  It is so nice to read a book that seems to take it's words right from my heart, and by placing them on paper, makes it possible for me to begin to understand and put to rest some of my heart's turmoil about treating our earth with delicate and tender hands.  It has given me some simple direction, since the challenges of living green, and doing what is right, and voicing my opinions, leaving a world in which my children can live healthy lives, and reducing my carbon footprint . . . are all pulling me in so many different directions as to make my well-intentioned efforts fragmented and inconsistent.

I'm told from several different sources that the most important issue is . . .

reducing wasteful use of water reducing herbicides and pesticides in our farming eating only grass-fed beef changing out my lightbulbs RECYCLING MY PAPER developing an alternative energy to fossil fuel saving the whales hybrid vs. electric? hemp forever!

Each of these camps is saying that if we only got this part or that part under control, we would have a huge impact on global warming!  So, not knowing who to believe, but believing that something needs to be done and doing anything is better than doing nothing, I attempt to remember my cloth bags when going to the market (but end up forgetting them in the front seat of my car when I drive to the store located 1/2 mile down the road); buy plastic solar powered yard lights (which are made in China - a half world away, and whose carbon footprint just in the shipping and plastic parts far outreaches any benefits of the solar contribution) to unnecessarily accent my totally inappropriate and water consuming lawn. And in a misinformed altruistic effort to start fresh, I throw out all toxic household hazardous waste in my home (which end up in a land-fill, leaching into the soil there, thereby contaminating the ground water in that area).  Okay, I haven't actually done all of those those things . . . okay, well maybe forgetting my bags in the car, and maybe driving my car when I should have walked . . . and I did buy a couple of those stick lights that are solar powered for the steps going down to the lake at the cabin (which never really worked by the way), BUT my yard is a totally cool environment for wildlife, filled with native grasses, flowers, fruits and vegetables, rocks and trees.   (No mowing!!  No watering!!)  And I have always properly disposed of household hazardous waste with our county treatment facility!!

It seems that we, each of us as individuals, and as part of organizations from corporations on down to small businesses, churches, schools; nay, no one is exempt;  have let things get so far out of hand that at every turn, we accidently, ignorantly, naively, or just plain ignoringly misbehave and step all over our newly acquired, and quickly tarnishing green image.  What are we to do??  No matter which way we turn we are messing up!!  It is completely overwhelming us!!  WE ARE DOOMED!!

davidkennardphotography.com

But wait!  I was talking about that special book at the beginning of this post.  It is a book that talks about ancient ideas, putting them in modern context. Even in the book's foreword written by Paul Hawken , wisdom shouts from the pages!  "It is tempting to see the problem of consumption as something other people do.  People with SUVs should cut back and buy smaller cars, get more exercise, and use a bicycle.  But this wonderfully edited volume shows us that it is more relevant and poignant to look at our own lives.  A Buddhist perspective on consumption offers understanding of oneself.  The quotidian ways in which we rob the earth are pathways to genuine insight.  And in the awareness of self arises compassion for others, especially those who are weighed down so heavily by material desire.  It is fair to say that people are overwhelmed by this world we share and live in.  Alleviating people's sense of isolation and fear can do more than any recycling program.  As Buddhist teachers so aptly point out, we can reduce our and others' desires by being generous and kind.  It is hard to be grasping when we are reaching out."

Linen: The Unfortunate Second Choice

Something that I have struggled to understand since I first started to weave with linen, is why there are no linen mills in the United States.  From the research that I have done, although not exhaustive, it has not revealed any record of any linen or flax mill in the United States, ever!  Or at least none that were big enough to have any record of existing.  Why is that?!  Did we go so gung-ho for cotton from the beginning??  Did Eli Whitney and his cotton gin have such an overwhelming effect on the textile industry as to delete flax from our very shores??  Did the unfortunate use of slaves in the 1800's make it so that cotton was easy to be king?  Did the politicians/land barons/cotton plantation owners of yesteryear buy their way to power, ensuring the dominance of cotton as the fiber of that century and centuries to follow??  Up until the late 18th century linen was probably the most important fiber in the world.  So what happened?

It is my understanding that flax is an easy crop to grow.  And although Belgium and Lithuania are in an optimal geo-climate, allowing that region to grow beautiful, long strong flax, it can be grown in just about any soil condition and in fairly harsh climates.

Oldest active linen mill in Lithuania.  

It requires water for the initial spouts to survive, but after that, basic rainfall works quite well for its healthy growth.  It is naturally pest resistant so pesticides and herbicides are not required for its growth, and its growing season is only about 3 months long, alowing most regions, even further north into Canada to grow flax with success.  The whole process of bringing the flax from seed to consumer is lots less costly to our earth in terms of toxic chemicals and water waste than cotton.  The linen fabric is so much stronger than cotton, and glossier and more beautiful than cotton, and more absorbant than cotton, linen lasts and lasts and is used and used, and is still passed from one generation to the next.  Whereas cotton is worn out in a couple of years at best, and thrown away.  So why is cotton still at the top of the heap??

 Large contemporary linen mill in Belgium

It just doesn't make sense to me, why the world persists in using cotton when linen is so much better!  My thought is that people just don't know!!  It has been a well kept secret and I guess I need to educate the world as to linen's functional, green, and beautiful qualities that are so lacking in cotton!!  Not even organic cotton can stand up to the workhorse fibers of flax!!

Combed Flax, being prepared for spinning.

So, until I can convince the world that flax is a very sustainable crop with very little waste, and what is waste is totally biodegradable; Until I can educate the world that flax is a very 'green' crop with very little to no use of toxic chemicals or herbicides to enhance its growth, nor has need of lots of water wasted in processing it into usable yarn and yard goods;  Until I can demonstrate to enough people that the superior inherent qualities of flax plant make linen an almost perfect fabric, with a long wearing life, extremely comfortable breath-ability, a quiet elegance, extreme absorbancy, a long glossy fiber that enables fabrics to have a sheen only seen in luxurious linen; Only when all this is accomplished will linen once again touch our shores and become a 'staple' in our farming communities, and our clothing and textile industries!  So help me spread the word!  Wear LINEN!  Use LINEN!!  BUY LINEN!!!  Linen:  The fiber that does it all!!

Linen Yarns imported for  v ä v a! v e v e!

Color:  AGATE

Color:  CORNFLOWER BLUE

Color:  NEW LEAF

Color:  SUNSHINE

Color:  SLATE

Color:  VIOLET

Conscious Evolution

There are so many things in our world to concern us and take up our attention; so much has gone awry.  The US political system is corrupt and it's economy is based on smoke and mirrors; Europe's monetary system is in jeopardy; many of Africa's nations seem to be in war and/or turmoil and their peoples in huge need; our earth's ecosystem is so out of balance that ice is melting on our polar ice caps, and weather systems are getting more extreme and intense; our wasteful living is piling up and polluting everything around it; the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.  At the core of all of this . . . . greed.  And it is not somebody else, some nameless person living in some other neighborhood, state or country who is causing this.  It is each and every one of us, trying to make ends meet, struggling to pay the mortgage, feeding and clothing our families, trying to scratch out a decent way of life.  Sure, the rich are benefiting from much of the chaos and destruction that is going on, but so are the rest of us.

I have talked about this before, and feel I need to address it again.  We all need to take responsibility for what is happening to our earth.  We each need to make many changes to our lives if we are going to survive.  I'm not talking about surviving in our own lifetimes.  I am talking about changing the way we walk through our own lives so our descendents will be able to live in anything other than a bubble.  Call it Conscious Evolution.

As each species confronts a problem that threatens them, the ones that are not as subject to the threat are the ones that survive.  This is evolution 101.  Built in defense measures such as the spiky fins on a fish, or the odor of the skunk are what have enabled these species to survive to date.  Even now, each species is evolving ever so slowly to accommodate our aggressive world.  But mankind has been manipulating our world, messing with this natural order, and disrupting evolution.  Through our striving to come up with a bigger and better mousetrap, and through our insecurities and needs which compel us to build up storehouses of supplies, we have managed to strip our world bare, and created such gaping holes in the world's balance, we now have outpaced the natural evolution and are now required to figure out our own evolution.  We now require everyday things like sunblock for our skin, since our ozone layer, thanks to humankind, is now letting in the wrong kinds of sunlight which is having huge adverse affect on skin.  We use so much water, we have to regulate it's use.   We have caused all manner of flora and fauna to die and even go extinct long before it was meant to, never to be seen again.  We are polluting the air, ground and water, and stripping the earth of the tools to mend itself, such as the large forests in our world which clean our air, developing wetlands into condos taking away the most efficient water filters we could have, and digging horrible sludge up from the bowels of the earth and using it for fuel - something definitely wrong there - and who knows what long term effects there will be from disrupting our earth miles below it's crust??!!

Each of us is a consumer.  We buy lots of stuff!!  We buy lots of stuff we just don't need, made in such a manner as to save money for the manufacturer who is trying to compete with the market by making the cheapest product he can make and still earn a profit, and who is not paying any attention to the actual costs to our earth.  We buy these cheap products to fulfill our needs.  Therefore we are supporting the destruction of our earth by buying these products.  We need to start paying attention, and being responsible and accountable for what we consume!  Rather than buy the inexpensive salad bowl, made a 1/2 world away, and which will need to be replaced in a year, we need to invest in our lives and our earth by purchasing quality, locally made items that will last, which are made with the least impact on our earth.  These items are more expensive, but in the long run, they have the least cost.  We need to change how we consume!  We need to make a conscious effort every day, about what we use and consume.  This is difficult, since it means having to pay attention to things we never really had to think about because we let the manufacturer make decisions for us.  If we trusted the manufacturer/brand name we didn't have to look any deeper.  They did the policing for us, or so we thought.  But now, everything has changed.  We need to take a look at everything, all the time!  We have gotten away with a very relaxed way of consuming for a very long time.  It is time that we started putting in some effort to support a positive way of consuming, so we can stay healthy along with our earth.  It is time that we evolve in our approach to consumption in our daily life so that we are not outpaced by the changing earth.  Let's start to consciously evolve and think about what and how we use our earth's resources by consuming less, local, and lime 'green'!!

Goodness!  It's been waaaaay too long since I last posted.  Inhale . . . So, lots has happened in the last year.  I have moved my studio, started working with retailers, set up a yarn business, added designs to my line, sent my son off to Kuwait, and my daughter to Europe!  Pant! Pant!  Wheeze!  For those of you looking to respond to my  plea for production weaving help through the Weavers Guild of MN, please go to my website www.vavaveve.com if you want to get an idea of who I am and what I do, then email me by clicking on the 'Contact Us' tab on my website.  Thank you for your help!!