Rustbeltfibershed

SPEAKER ALERT!

The symposium is just about 3 weeks away! Let’s get excited about our speakers!!

First off, our community is so lucky to have these speakers come and share their time and expertise with all of us. Our speakers have always been passionate members from all parts of the textile supply chain, and this year is no different.

This year we’re asking questions about what might be possible? If we have the opportunity to rethink textiles here altogether (and all, together) what can we dream up? What if we really believe that textiles is one system that can actively create a more vibrant future??

This year we’ll be hearing from people who steward sheep, shear animals, cultivate flax-for-linen, use flax to remediate soil, use cooperative structures to create regional blue, involve students in this work, create textile recycling projects in partnership with local municipalities, use mycelium to design interiors, use mycelium to remediate textile dyes, create a container for a Midwest fashion hub and how to do that while being a good ancestor, and offering waste material as a way for artistic expression and everyday wear.

You can find out more info about each of our speakers on our website.

IT IS GOING TO BE INCREDIBLE AHHHHH!!!

Just being in the room with these speakers and the One Year One Outfit fashion show and all the vendors and learning station hosts from the afternoon— it is sure to be an inspirational, connecting time where we can really focus on what we want to dream up here. 

How much can we all actually live into a future worth making? What do fiber and textiles have to do with it?

Come find out! Link in bio! January 24, registration opens at 8:15 am— bright and early! We will have the coffee ready!

We still have a couple weeks left to register, but we do expect we will sell out. Please be sure to register ASAP!

We love you ❤️

Fiber Brunch on on January 4th in Akron!

Thanks so much to for organizing and hosting a fiber art crafternoon to promote the upcoming symposium in Cleveland on January 24th! It will be a potluck-style meal of breads/teas/jams + whatever dish you feel like sharing on a cozy afternoon! .spargo and will have a set of natural dye pots going! With another fiber craft TBA. Music by Dustin Mayle. And we will be sharing a little bit about the RBF!
$10 suggested donation to support the symposium!!

One of our favorite questions from yesterday’s artist panel involved asking about time. Time to make an outfit from scratch from our place. The “one year” aspect of the project. The slow fashion of it. Ultimately: does it feel sustainable to create clothing this way, using so much time to make an outfit?

We wish we would have recorded the answers because they turned the question on its head. Instead of thinking of it as a time sink, the artists shared in their own ways: making an outfit like this is something they WANT to do. It’s something they do to think. Something to relax. Something to have time to themselves. Something instead of doomscrolling. Something where the smallest amount of daily actions- a little spinning here, a few rows of knitting there- before you know it these actions add up to an outfit. Hey talked about the importance of fitting it into their life, making time for it.

We couldn’t help but note the through line of joy propelling the action, and that it feels so good to create something.

Of course some said they hit their points where they would rather not see knitting needles for a bit, but ultimately creating a slow fashion outfit from scratch was very, very worth the time.

We try to be clear with this project: we aren’t ever saying that making all of your own clothes from scratch is an at-scale solution for our fast fashion problem.

BUT we do say: if you start to mend your own clothes, overdye your own clothes, care about where they come from, swap em with friends, upcycle them, and then maybe make a garment from scratch once in awhile… things will absolutely shift.

And the biggest of those shifts might not even be lowered carbon emissions … it might be in what else this world can become that we can’t even envisage yet because instead of spending time consuming, we are spending it creating!

Thank you so much to everyone who came to yesterday’s panel! Special thanks to for hosting this show, and for , , , , , and for participating in the panel!