The Festival of Natural Fibres 2022.
The Festival of Natural Fibres was hosted for the sixth year by Freeweaver Saori Studio and Khadi London at Craft Central in South East London in October 2022 over two days.
It aims to create a welcoming space for all those enthusiastic, entranced, or simply curious about natural fibres and brings together a community of farmers, researchers, designers, makers, activists and entrepreneurs to demonstrate and discuss the emerging conversations and technologies in the space.
Each day of the festival focussed on a specific aspect of natural fibres; day one was regarding the value chain - the growing, processing, making and designing, and day two regarded the wider systemic issues, revolving mostly around regenerative economies.
In this blog post I highlight key discussions from the panels across the two days accompanied by my own reactions, along with some reflection on Dylan Howitt’s film about Allan Brown’s work The Nettle Dress, and some tidbits on makers and designers exhibiting themselves and their chosen natural fibre.
Images: 1. Festival entrance (unsure on the designer-maker; 2. Marsh and Moor’s hand plant-dyed wool yarn; 3. Leaflet and display about khadi in the UK from Khadi London; 4. Banner held up as the festival was inaugurated, saying “In a gentle way you can shake the world”; 5. First panel discussion on growing.
Growing.
Panel discussion with Sanne van den Dungen (regenerative cotton Raddis®), Amit Dalvi (Beejkatha and Khadi London), Claire O’Sullivan (Contemporary Hempery), Ellie Byrne (Central Saint Martins student on behalf of Fernhill Farm) and Paula Wolton (heritage sheep farmer of OneHutFull). The session was moderated by Jo Salter (brand owner Where Does It Come From?)
Introductions.
I’ve had the pleasure of chatting at length with Sanne van den Dungen previously, in a set of three recordings about the state of the cotton industry, along with Aneel Kumar Ambavaram of GVK Society (before Raddis® split off into its own branded arm). The lessons are behind a paywall unfortunately, but in case the rest of this membership platform appeals to you, here are the lessons: How cotton farming creates, affects, and could alleviate poverty, Market pricing, demand and opportunities for regenerative cotton, and Demystifying conventional and sustainable cotton farming. What Raddis are doing needed no introduction to me, but for your sake: Raddis® is transforming the cotton value chain through farm-to-product transparency, encouraging brand partners to invest in the transition to regenerative farming despite it taking at least 3 years to convert from pesticide-ridden conventional cotton farming to clean organic systems.
Amit Dalvi is working with five cotton farmers on a seed-to-cloth project on an agroforestry site in India; Beejkatha it seems means ‘the story of a seed’, and is a volunteer group that is enabling the self-sufficiency of farmers in Kakkadara, Maharashtra, India. Contemporary Hempery is newly established, and explained that they are having challenges with the government (to make hemp growing more accessible, or at least more manageable) and reviving the industry in general. Paula Wolton is a sheep farmer in Devon, with membership in the South West England Fibreshed, and has an educational project - OneHutFull - that tells the story of the heritage of Dartmoor sheep breeds.
Creating a market for UK fibre.
Rather than focussing on working with designers as a way to improve the market for UK fibre usage, panellists referred instead to the impact of education as a way to encourage its increase.
Paula remarked that invoking our senses can encourage the change, as occured with local food. Seeing it up close allows people to “own it” through touch and feel. Ellie made a similar point, in response to her experience on placement at Fernhill Farm, that such urban-farm gap bridging opportunities allow people to be involved in the process, bringing knowledge that they can then use when purchasing garments (so increasing demand for “better” options).
There was a point about raising awareness with tribal farmers on upskilling and collaboration, so that they were better placed to be self-sufficient in a shifting market. Sanne countered this by asking why farmers take the responsibility anyway, when it is the brands making the profits. Raddis® use a B2B model, where partners (e.g. brands) pay for acreage of regenerative cotton as an investment, so stablilising a supply chain that is usually volatile.
For Contemporary Hempery, they are so named because they first want to create a stylish material that will engage those who wouldn’t normally choose hemp. Rather than educating per se, they are seducing, and this can work for anyone with purchasing power, from everyday citizens to brands.
Measuring the (beneficial) impact of natural fibres.
This question looked to the methodology that defines the environmental benefits of growing natural fibres over extracting fossil fuels for synthetic production. The conversation started with considering the framework from which regenerative agriculture is now known to be followed.
Claire stated that they are unsure of the carbon drawdown effect of their Contemporary Hempery hemp plot - or for hemp in general - but are following the other principles of regen ag (no mention of biodiversity though, and they don’t specifically have animals, which is key for regen ag). Regenerative agriculture key principles start and end with the soil health, ensuring farmers don’t disturb the soil (through minimal tillage), keeping the soil surface covered year-round, keeping living roots in the soil, growing a diverse range of crops, and bringing grazing animals back to pasture.
Sanne followed this up by explaining that beneficial impacts are expensive to monitor, so is not possible in reality for small tribal farmers to do, especially as their rotation can be on a 5 year cycle so you would have to wait for the full report. However, people (investors, trading, brands) want the quantitative data, regardless of if the qualitative information is compelling. Raddis® are aiming to be climate positive, though that the “minimal we should strive for is carbon neutrality”. Amit suggested that training farmers is necessary, so that they become self-sufficient in managing their land; this is where new technology can help farmers, such as with weather drones.
Though it can be tricky to measure in data form, it is clear from years of experiential evidence of the improvement to soils and grasslands through using regenerative and holistic farming principles, seen most distinctly through the Savory Institute (see the video How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change for a TED talk from Allan Savory). Ellie gave a tidbit that Jen (farmer at Fernhill Farm) puts seeds in the salt licks so that the animals themselves replant the fields.
Images: 1-3. Contemporary Hempery’s stand including the hemp heckler comb / with two small stooks of hemp straw retted differently (I think dew retted on the left and water retted on the right) / and an example of hemp fibre with the ‘sown, harvested and processed’ dates; 4-6. Rosie Bristow’s ‘Straw Into Gold’ project: Rosie spins flax fibre / shows fibre processed from flax grown in different places and by hand or machine and retted differently / a woven piece that shows all of the different processing types and what it does for a finished fabric.
Ensuring the work is not undone.
You can put in so much effort at the growing stage: ensuring the land regenerates, that farmers are paid a fair price, that animals live a healthy life. But what if you give this fibre to the value chain, and it is simply lost, because it is just too complex an industry? How can we ensure that the work in the growing phase isn’t undone by the processing stage?
This was quite a swift response. To have:
Traceability across the chain, and relationships with local makers.
Vertical integration (growing, processing, spinning, making all in one place) - or potentially this is a Fibreshed structure.
Small processing minimums to keep the cost down at the end product stage. This also relates to having wider and more regional infrastructure to build capacity and allow independent growers to access the market with their own traceability from farm-to-closet.
Decentralised processing in terms of technology, because this is energy intensive. This comment came from Amit who helped found Khadi London, bringing the decentralised product of khadi back to people’s imaginations.
Customers who can actually afford the higher cost associated with natural fibres. The energy crisis is forcing people to reconsider their purchases, for clothing and food (and everything else), but big brands in a capitalist loop aren’t making it possible for customers to recognise this cost disparity between synthetic and natural fibres (and end products).
Licensing.
This last bit referred mainly to hemp, as it’s still a bit of a grey area in the UK. Unfortunately it is illegal to grow hemp without a licence from the UK government, so Claire talked through the simple steps Contemporary Hempery had to take to establish their plot, suggesting that the government want you to think it’s difficult when in fact it isn’t. This is what you need to show and do:
An aerial photo that proves your plot isn’t by the road (hemp can’t be seen, because it distinguished as cannabis)
What you are doing with the leftover plant matter (i.e. not processing it for CBD oil etc)
Pay £580 for a 3 years (cost dependent on the plot size)
Be DBS checked and register at companies house (so they can see you don’t have criminal offences)
Processing.
The second panel of the day was moderated by Gandhian activist and generational hand-spinner, Asha Buch (also an associate of Khadi London), with panellists Rosie Bristow (Straw Into Gold), Maria (weaver and founder of MarshnMoor naturally dyed regeneratively farm wool skeins), Kitty Wilson Brown (Contemporary Hempery) and Yuli Sømme (Bellacouche natural burial shrouds).
Introductions.
Rosie Bristow has been researching the processing part of the value chain for flax fibre, something which no longer exists in the UK because everything moved to the continent; Belgium, France, parts of the Netherlands and Lithuania are now the main processing places for linen yarns and fabric in Europe (apart from China). When it comes to the UK in current times, there are hobby hand tools, but no meaty machinery, because an industrial plant would cost something like £1.2 million. So Rosie is focussing on taking hobby tools into the industry standard.
As one part of Contemporary Hempery, Kitty is experimenting with the processing steps of hemp as there isn’t much research available. A question was asked about using flax tools for hemp in order to improve the accessibility and reduce costs, and though there are similiarities in the equipment, there needs to be some variations as hemp is a chunkier straw, and so the flax breaker (blocky wooden lever) isn’t heavy enough for hemp.
Maria as both a practicing vegan and someone with autism (of course not mutually exclusive, and I believe she had specifically said autism) works to address environmentalism and mental health through her business MarshnMoor, taking regeneratively farmed wool to be spun into knitting yarn skeins that are then naturally dyed with plant pigments. Key to this is ensuring traceability so there is an awareness of how beneficial these products are to all.
Yuli Sømme founded Bellacouche (meaning ‘beautiful resting place’) to bring a connection with hand-heart-soul and the soil together. The natural burial shrouds will biodegrade with the person.
Connecting the processing to growing.
Rosie started off by explaining that the initial Straw Into Gold project involved working with George Young of Fobbing Farm in Essex to drill sow a hectare of flax seed. However, this year it is only possible to have access and time to sow a small plot in Edinburgh. Depending on your plot size - if you were to grow flax - you may need to involve volunteers (as The Super Slow Way’s Homegrown/Homespun project team did in Blackburn) because flax pulling and laying down to dew ret takes time. I’ve had 3 years of growing approximately two times 1.5 metre x 1 metre beds, and that’s enough for me.
Yuli explained how she had chosen to challenge the funereal industry - or textile industry in general - through using raw wool to create biodegradable shrouds, but to make such wool products as she does, you need to make expensive one-offs or increase production for an economy of scale. Yuli previously worked with a Devonshire mill, who were part of Axminster Carpets, but they closed down leaving only two remaining wool scouring plants - both based in Yorkshire. This meant Yuli was able to source certified organic wool, but compromised on the provenance - the shrouds are now not bioregional. To combat that issue, she buys some of Fernhill Farm’s regenerative wool, who are based in Somerset, to add something more traceable, and will on occasion purchase Dartmoor wool, though she explains it is messier as it’s full of gorse and isn’t blade-sheared (meaning by hand, unlike Fernhill).
Ewe pregnancy causes breakages in the fleece, and so along with other elements of animal welfare such as stressors from quality of life (indoors and outdoors) the wool can lack quality. If a sheep is not sheared, they run the risk of getting tangled in hedges where they like to go for eating scrub or for shelter; blade shearing is usually done twice a year to aid the animal’s movement around the land. However, all of these external factors can be detrimental to the overall quality of the wool, and if you don’t have the time or expertise or equipment to process the fleece bearing all of this in mind, then you can end up with a poorer wool - on top of a market that is already depleted in value.
Scaling up the processing.
French mills process 60-80,000 hectares of flax fibre. The smallest mill for the UK would cost £6-8 million, but this would be useless as we don’t grow enough flax to make it worthwhile. Yet, most of the flax currently grown in the UK would be classed as cottage industry, and though Flaxland in Gloucestershire do export their flax straw for processing on the continent, the majority of growers wouldn’t be able to meet the minimums to make it worthwhile. So not only would we need to collectively meet the mill cost, we’d also have to be upping our growing capacity. This is where the government really needs to step in, along with educating on the benefits of flax for other industries - it is a food source as well as fibre, can be used as a composite for a type of fibreglass, increases biodiversity, can grow in poor soil, and only requires the land 3 months of the year.
Another issue with processing here is the retting involved. Retting is a process by which the gums in the straw are broken down allowing the straw to be opened revealing the cellulosic fibre inside. Most flax is processed with water retting using biological enzymes in a closed system; previously, especially in Ireland, flax would be retted in rivers and streams, and though we see this as a natural fibre, too much of those gums going into water can cause it to stagnate and is effectively pollution. Dew retting allows the straw to break down in situ in the field, but is harder to control and so EU experts would be required to train farmers and processors here.
Processing relies on the growers.
In order to get to the processing stage, you need to have the fibre in the first place - as mentioned above in regards to scaling up flax processing. Currently we grow more linseed in the UK than flaxseed, so Rosie wants to continue experimenting with Fobbing Farm to utilise the linseed straw leftover after his harvest (which currently doesn’t do much). Linseed and flaxseed are similar varieties of the Linum family, but linseed has a shorter straw making it poorer for linen fibre, but better for food sources. Rosie believes that having more farmers and growers interested in the fibre will build resilience for re-establishing and retaining the industry.
In terms of wool, Yuli says that veganism shakes the industry. With a move to non-animal fibres (and a continuation of using synthetic fibres) there is little to no market for wool - which is why during 2020, along with a pandemic, the price hit five pence per fleece [read more on this in my visit to Brickpits Organic Farm]. The argument is that sheep are a cause of land degradation and methane emissions, but fans of sheep will extol that it is in fact the farming practices and land management that causes these issues, rather than the sheep themselves - as is evidenced by Fernhill Farm. Having an on-farm abbatoir is an additional way to not only improve animal welfare by reducing stress levels, but reduce costs too - and observe traceability.
Maria finished up by saying she had initially wanted to use linen for her business, because she is a practicing vegan and was set on using UK fibres, something which was limited five years ago when she started. However, with linen being difficult to trace, she shifted to wool, but ensures she sources from farms that evidence their animal welfare practices.
A question came from Sanne about using low grade wool for shrouds, as a way to utilise the stuff that no one else wants. I wondered about the moral perception of this - of putting a body in “dirty” wool. Yuli explained that she uses a felt cloth anyway, so no spinning or weaving is required, reducing the processing amount needed to create Bellacouche’s shrouds. However, the biggest hurdle could be in fact around the regulations that need to be observed with burial, regardless of what the deceased person is wrapped in; soil depth and management of the site are enormously important, particularly when burials tend to not be “natural” due to the preserving chemicals used on the body.
It reminded me again of how we need to have open conversations about all these elements of all of these industries if we are to collectively shift forward into something more regenerative than extractive.
Charkha spinning.
In between the first two panels of the day, I was able to participate in charkha cotton spinning with Asha Buch of Khadi London. From the outside looking in, it looks simple enough. Hold the fibre, turn the wheel and pull to twist the yarn. And that’s actually what Asha was explaining - “twist and pull”. But my thread kept breaking just as I got the knack of the twisting and angling.
Charkha refers to the spinning wheel in India, no matter the size, but the book-size charkha is the one we used in this session. As the most common Indian spinning wheel was not easy to set up or move, Gandhi held a contest in 1929 to design a spinning wheel that was small, lightweight and portable - and it was this one that he took with him to prison.
Khadi is a simple cloth made from handspun and handwoven cotton (and at that time would’ve been indigenous cotton varieties too). The availability and ease of spinning yarn at home that could then also be woven at home on backstrap or small looms, was integral to the uprising Gandhi wanted to bring about against British imperial forces.
Unfortunately it was £20 for the hour session, and because it was in the middle of the floor of the festival room and in between panels, we didn’t quite get an hour and didn’t quite get much guidance each, so it’s something I’ll have to return to with my own charkha - it requires patience.
Images taken at the event during the charkha spinning session: Asha Buch demonstrating how to use the book-size charkha, the small amount of yarn I had managed to spin (with coercion from Asha), all of the waste cotton rovings, and me sat on the floor trying to spin.
Making and designing.
The panel included Kitty Wilson Brown (Contemporary Hempery), Morgan Amber (Morgan Amber Printing), Sarah Jerath (Caravan Sarai), Justine Lee (Ossian Knitwear Studio), Rachel Sheila Kan (Ecosystem Incubator) and Nadia Piechestein (TLZmovement).
Disappointingly I had to head off before the end of day one to work, and so missed this panel discussion on making and designing with natural fibres. Just so you have all of the information in case you find yourself on this blog, this description was taken from the Festival of Natural Fibres blog from Khadi London written by Ashna Patel.
“Each panellist brought forth their experiences with working directly with the value chain in different capacities and at different points of the chain, including engaging first-handedly with shepherds, to processing raw natural fibre themselves, to working directly with wearers to make an impact on behavioural habits in relation to clothing and textiles. They each demonstrated how design processes, especially those that have a foundation of sustainability and regeneration, are becoming more participatory and investigatory.”
After this panel, there was a rounding off to the day with a discussion on collaboration - key to embedding these practices because it really will take a village (and more) to shift the system.
Images: 1. panellists on the second panel of day one on processing natural fibres; 2. Morgan Amber Printing; 3. Sarah Jerath of Caravan Sarai (note, she realised the yak image shouldn’t have been with this cloth); 4. A textile from Freeweaver Saori Studio (I believe).
Regenerative economies.
The panel session for day two was titled Regenerative Fibres and New Economics. Moderated by Rachel Sheila Kan, founder of The Ecosystem Incubator, “a collaboration of micro-players in sustainable fashion that come together to work as one to build towards a future economy”. Panellists included Bel Jacobs (writer, speaker and activist with a focus on animal rights, the climate emergency and the toxic fashion system), Vanessa Barker (regenerative cotton plant-based underwear brand Bedstraw & Madder), Ashna Patel (Khadi London) and Kishore Shah (co-founder and director of Khadi London).
Introductions.
The panel introduced what ‘regenerative economies’ meant to the panellists as a term, and why they are working on improving the situation for farmers or educating citizens.
Bel said she had felt the resistance to degrowth, which is necessary in order to slow extraction and increase regeneration.
Ashna had taken a sustainable design journey through India, observing and researching the decentralised fibre industry there.
Kishore established Khadi London after returning to Gandhi and witnessing a khadi revolution in London, yet being disappointed that it was all terms and no meat - the khadi he saw wasn’t real khadi - so wanted to build a charity that would educate.
Vanessa is co-founder of Bedstraw & Madder, a brand that have support from Raddis® and Oshadi to access regenerative cotton for their underwear products. They had worked to remove the harmful bleaching process to make a cleaner, healthier fibre and then one year planting regenerative cotton, and one year experimenting with red dye.
Challenges with regeneration.
The conversation started with a look at the limitations of regenerative cotton agriculture to create a strong quality fibre and fabric. Vanessa mentioned that rain-fed cotton produces a short staple fibre (short in length) and so when spun, isn’t as tensile as a long staple, meaning it can’t produce the tightest weave - which is expected of for most products in fashion and homewares. With scaling from 1 acre (which they currently have access to for research) to 100 acres, perhaps it would be possible to put effort into developing a tighter yarn and fabric.
Additionally, there are high minimum order quantities (MOQs) for each step of the chain, along with a desire for a fast pace. However, for a decentralised fabric such as the handspun and handwoven khadi, the education about lead time and quality is misunderstood, so Kishore suggests that there should be a khadi specific standard that ensures brands recognise in reality the time-consuming product they are purchasing. Apparently, luxury brands are buying plots of land in India so that they have immediate access to a crop, but the chain isn’t set up to work like this, with raw cotton being shipped to the gin before being handled by anyone else, including the khadi weavers.
With this model of brands owning land, the farmers become labourers rather than landworkers. If the brand then walks away, the farmer has no stability. Regenerative systems such as those operated by Raddis or Oshadi help farmers retain power. Generally the issue is that brands will come in and say what they want without understanding the wider chain or system, as when they drive prices down without recognising the other players. So in building regenerative fibre systems, there needs to be the inclusion of voices from those of the land.
The overall challenge was noted as being degrowth, but in the Global North only. According to Kate Fletcher (in the Earth Logic Action Plan, I think) she recommends we need a 75-95% drop in consumption, but perhaps only a 60% drop if we already remove synthetics. This suggests that natural fibres could still have a beneficial place in a system that works towards degrowth.
making it regenerative for people.
In the current agricultural system, farmers aren’t contracted and so really don’t have any ties - apart from if we’re looking at conventional cotton where there is debt to agrochemical corporations, such as Monsanto. So really, farmers can walk if the situation doesn’t suit them. Most conversations revolving around farmers though shows that this is their livelihood, their lifeline, and so why would they want to shift? For most rural places, farming is one of the only ways to support a family. A shift to a regenerative farming system needs to ultimately benefit the farmers first, otherwise the system can’t be upheld.
Unfortunately there was no mention here of food security, only about the growing of fibres. To me, we can’t talk about fibre security if we’re not talking about food security - and vice versa. So at question time, I asked what the panellists’ views are on the interconnectedness of food and fibre; having spoken to Raddis Cotton previously, along with the other half of Bedstraw & Madder, Primrose Matheson, former owner of Primrose’s Kitchen organic cereals, I anticipated certain responses from them. Vanessa for Bedstraw & Madder responded about interplanting natural dye crops within the cotton fields so that there were additional revenue streams, along with biodiversity and polycultures. Similarly, Raddis operate with regenerative principles already in mind so interplant other food crops to build in self-sufficiency.
Additional to this, Kishore highlighted that silk cocoons are a source of protein in India. I’m wary, though, of how much production goes towards food, and how much towards sustaining a silk industry when you can’t realistically have both operating at once (the cocoon is where the silk comes from). At least silk production can fall under an agroforestry system, because mulberry trees are required to feed silkworms to harvest the cocoons, and so there are other benefits here, such as carbon drawdown and soil rejuvenation.
Finally, Ashna regarded the care label as a place for ingredients to be listed, which yes, does open up transparency for the industry, but is a more poetic link for food and fashion than I was expecting to hear in this conversation. An ingredients list would help educate consumers, but first there needs to be a breakdown of the language and the system currently in place - we can’t simply present a list of chemicals and expect to know what they are or do.
Related to that, there was mention otherwise under this question about the validity of certifications, with the newness of the Regenerative Organic standard. I didn’t make additional notes, but in hindsight think it was referring to the difficulties in building a framework that would suit all types of farming, from the small to the large, while still benefitting local economies - which is what is needed to sustain a regenerative organic practice. This then ran into a comment by Ashna that her sister had made, saying that you have to scale in order to make change. But this doesn’t sit well with a shift towards decentralised industries, where there is self-sufficiency and local economies, as with the above discussion on certifications; these small shifts have a ripple effect to other communities, and so I don’t feel it necessary to scale up all ventures or frameworks, and instead they should be tailored to the needs at hand.
Coming from the topic of decentralisation, though not necessarily mentioned as such, panellists had discussed miseducation regarding fibres and fabrics; Bel quoted Carolyn Franklin saying the introduction of polyester garments was the ‘democratisation of fashion’ - yet consumers don’t fully appreciate how devastating this has been, even with conversations targeted towards microplastics and fossil fuels. It stretches much further. So to build regenerative economies, panellists had chatted about using what we have and increasing recycling - however, both of these still require consumer and designer education, and the infrastructure, and policy change. What actually can we do first, and what should be done first?
Images (all credit to Festival of Natural Fibres): 1. the Regenerative Economies panel; 2. spinning flax fibre from the distaff; 3. the Making and Designing panel; 4. carding wool.
The Nettle Dress.
The Festival ended with a showing of the feature length film from Dylan Howitt of Allan Brown’s seven year-long project - The Nettle Dress - to create a nettle dress entirely from foraged nettles that he had processed, spun, woven and sewn himself. It was quite the end - showing the craft involved in processing natural fibres the traditional way, the impact that can be had emotionally in connecting tangibly with the material, and the effort that needs to be taken to truly educate on the true cost of production.
The film is touring for March 2023 so try catch a screening. Watch a trailer of The Nettle Dress here.
The most surprising thing from this film is not actually the length of time taken to submerge into a project, or that the final garment was created purely from one person, but in fact that the warp was a nettle-flax ply. This means that the nettle fibre was plied with a flax fibre into a yarn to create the warp for the loom, presumably for tensile strength. It’s not like it’s cheating, though this little extra bit of knowledge shows the intricacy required in creating something in a monomaterial, and the compromises you may need to make.
“I know every inch of this yarn, it’s like an old friend”.
In the film Allan mentions 14400ft, though it’s unclear if this is for the warp thread only. He gathers and processes and spins seasonally to create the warp thread, and then needs to gather and process and spin some more for the weft thread. He describes the sensation of picking nettles in Spring, and how it is both an unpleasant and pleasant experience. He also mentioned the Hans Christian Andersen story of the Wild Swans, where a princess had to harvest nettles from the graveyard - using bare hands - and spin and weave them into eleven coats to save her eleven brothers from a curse.
“I can feel the clothiness of it now”.
When he shrouds himself with the finished fabric, it’s a nice moment. He says the above line. The steps taken to create the cloth were long and toilsome, but then he was able to understand the full breadth of the endeavour upon holding the material. The shroud became a place to absorb loss and grief - the thread was weak like the mind, the process and the finished cloth are strong.
My final surprise was found in the cloth processing stages, before the fabric was cut to be made into a dress. The cloth was washed to soften it, so unintentionally (I guess) creating a nettle tea solution that would then fertiliser for the land. This reminded me of Rosie Bristow using potato starch as a sizing agent for their flax; the simple traditional recipes that actually come as a byproduct.
Images: 1. Dylan Howitt and Allan Brown taking questions after the showing of The Nettle Dress; 2. Allan Brown and Claire checking out the hemp fibre samples from Contemporary Hempery.