Back in September 2021, I along with a group of other textile practitioners, visited Brickpits organic farm in East Sussex to learn about their dye project in collaboration with South East England Fibreshed.

It’s probably best to begin with an introduction to what “fibreshed” means.

Fibresheds.

Fibershed was coined by Rebecca Burgess over in California as a description of regional regenerative fibre systems. As it stands, our supply chains for every imaginable product are so vast, and yet it wasn’t always this way, and doesn’t have to be either. Unfortunately, there is a limit to local infrastructure that it is immensely difficult to create even one garment with a regional environment. But Rebecca sought to solve this, and a movement began. Now in England we have a myriad of regional affiliate hubs: SW England was the first and subsequently is the most established, and then SE England (expecting to cover London too), NW England (who recently completed a seed-to-jeans project with brand Community Clothing), and NE England is underway so it has been told. Scotland, Wales and Ireland are still to come it seems.

To learn more about what a fibreshed looks like in practice, I heartily recommend Rebecca’s book, Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy. You can get that here. I would also recommend seeking out Cordwainers Dye, who developed and concluded the Grow-A-Garment project, creating a linen jumper within London. I had the pleasure of speaking to founder Kate Poland in this panel discussion and presentation for The Sustainable Fashion Collective.

The Coreoposis Dye Pilot.

So, the Brickpits Organic Farm dye project was developed with a micro grant from the above mentioned Fibershed USA, in order to identify the potential to grow tinctorial plants within southeast England. Another part of the funding went to Aweside Farm, and another to knitwear designer Harriet Miller, both to explore a different dye plant.

Brickpits Farm is a mixed family farm producing high quality organic wool (as a byproduct to rearing sheep for meat), which they sell to the Wool Board. Farmer Lynnie got on board to trial the growing of coreopsos tinctoria in a corner of a barley field, with a view to growing tinctorial dye commercially to diversify the farm’s income.

What is Coreopsis?

Also known as garden tickseed, golden tickseed, or calliopsis, Coreopsis tinctoria is a stunning species of the Asteraceae family. It isn’t actually native to the UK, but as it grows well in most soils, and in fairly similarly mild climates of the US and Canada, plus is versatile as an edible flower or tea, it’s quite a straightforward plant to grow. It has multiple uses, it looks good, and you don’t need to do too much for it.

What is an organic farm?

I was recently asked what “organic” means in terms of food. Simply put, there are no inputs used in organic farming that nature does not provide itself. The system should ideally be regenerative and require minimal human intervention, allowing for natural ecosystems the ability to do their thing. There are organic standards, but it isn’t really a one-size-fits-all approach, as it can depend on the output, the location, the climate, and so on.

At Brickpits, for the last 21 years, Lynnie and her husband have been restoring their 150 acre mixed farm to the original medieval field system. Another book recommendation: read Reclaiming The Commons by Vandana Shiva to recognise how land has been split and essentially privatised globally, so affecting access to food, along with decrease in soil biodiversity and health. During our visit, to truly understand how dye plants could sit and scale commercially on an organic farm, Lynnie took us on a tour.

As a food grower in a kitchen garden, it was wonderful to finally experience a different organic set up - and satisfyingly, understand the terms Lynnie was using.

The attendees.

It is exceptionally important that the wider fashion industry acknowledges where its raw materials come from. Not the retailer or the mill, but right back to the source - to the land. Even when using synthetic materials we should be grateful for the science that brought it to life. But there is no transparency, no traceability, no real visuals that explain the connection between the cotton fibre and the cotton t-shirt, for instance.

It was a real treat then, to be in a group of individuals looking to learn, and open to taking their learnings back to their own peers. There was: Jackie, Head of Sustainability at mill Johnstons Of Elgin. Ellen, a denim manufacture consultant and designer of direct-to-consumer brand Sideline. Anna, a colour trend forecaster interested in colour from food waste, and contributor to Luminary colour trend books. Ellie, an estate gardener and natural dyer. Nicki, dress historian who teaches people how to make historic garments. Gemma, knitwear designer and farmer. Deb, an MA student. Charlotte, textile designer. Fiona, who runs the Saddlescombe dye garden and spinner at Ditchling Museum. And someone I already have the pleasure of knowing, regenerative local leather designer and researcher Alice Robinson.

The farm.

Before Lynnie and family took on the farm, there were no hedges, it was contract farmed and was owned by Southern Water. The land was fallow - nothing grown on it for years - but soil tests were returned as positive. The locale offers up the geography of the High Weald, a rolling landscape of scattered farms and sandstone escarpments, so there is a variety of soils and therefore a lot can be reared or grown on it. They have 110 acres, with an additional 110 extra for winter, and 80 acres for silage. It is arable land, with 200 ewes and 20 cattle.

We were taken around the farm and shown different fields and farming approaches suitable to organic and regenerative methods.

• The barley field is undersown with grass, so that once the barley has been harvested, the sheep can access clean healthy meals. It is then on rotation with stubble turnips, which the sheep graze.

• Beetle banks are little mounds running the length of an arable field, which provide a habitat beneficial to a diversity of species that prey on pests. No arable crops are grown here.

• Chicory is useful for sheep to graze on as natural “medicine” against parasites and worms.

• Permanent pasture allows for clean grazing; sheep graze, then you allow the growing of grass for hay, then the cattle will graze, and again you allow grass for hay. It is never cut, so naturally regenerating.

• Dung samples are used to check microbes. In non-organic farming, chemical “wormer” solutions are used to kill off internal animal worms, but these will stay in the soil for up to 2 years, thereby decreasing the number of insects around and micro-organisms in the soil.

• Hedges with thick bottoms have been constructed out of eight native species e.g. hazel, dogwood, to encourage biodiversity of fauna and provide wind protection, which is helpful for cattle and sheep.

• Margins - the strip of land around a field - is left as it is, to encourage wildlife and protect the soil.

Meat and wool production.

Then we came across the sheep.

Along with being a useful natural fertiliser for land, they also provide meat and fibre.

Sheep breeds.

Brickpits rear a few species of sheep. Their Black Welsh Mountain sheep are a “watered down” variety as they were a rescue. They do allow cross-breeding, and so have Texel crosses, and Suffolk crosses. The result is a variety of fleeces.

• Texels are a heavily muscled sheep, that produces a lean meat carcass, with a wool fibre diameter of around 32 micron (human hair is about 70 micron) - suitable for hosiery and knitting wool. They originate from an island in the Netherlands, and so are used to harsh windy climates.

• Suffolks are probably instantly recognisable, with their black face, white coat and long ears. Again they produce top quality lamb, but their wool is coarse and so is rarely found in clothing, especially as black fibres can often be found spun in the yarn.

• Black Welsh Mountains are hardy and self-reliant, with a distinctive brown-black coat. It is of course useful to textiles because it is naturally black (or at least dark), and happily the wool itself is fine and soft.

The Wool Board.

The British Wool Board has said that the wool market has dropped over the last couple of years (2020-2021) because less aeroplanes were being used and made; wool is naturally flame-retardant and durable, and so is readily used for carpeting. Unfortunately, British Wool does have the reputation of being coarse and discoloured, so is rarely sought after for clothing and instead focussed on for textiles including carpets.

Despite there being a market - albeit a small one - for wool, therefore providing farms an additional income stream for the lamb they are already producing, farmers do not want to send their wool to the Wool Board. If you’ve watched Jeremy Clarkson’s The Farm, you’ll have seen the episode with Ellen where they worked out the profit. There wasn’t one, really.

As with all fibres, there is inflation and there is a change in market demand. Wool fibre could be stored, but it is bulky in fleece form, and farms likely need the space for their grain. There is also the issue found with everyone shearing their sheep at the same time, so there is only a significant amount of fibre twice a year. For cotton, it’s usually once a year because it can only be harvested once a year. Access to those who can process and spin the fibre is another matter.

There is also the grading: coarse fibre is graded low so giving a low price. There are limited applications for coarse fibre, and yet there is limited education from farmers on how to breed a sheep that offers a sought after fibre. Because fashion designers and farmers don’t speak.

And, just as a note in case you weren’t aware, sheep need to be sheared for their health. They’re basically wearing a jumper, so imagine that in summer, but this can also introduce flystrike and have them get stuck in hedges. So, until lamb as a meat is no longer wanted, we will breed ewes to mother lamb, and we can utilise their byproduct fleeces for the wonderful ancient fibre it is.

The price of wool.

Wool is sheared, bundled and crammed as fleece in to “sheets” (ton sacks). The collection lorry is paid according to how many sheets it collects, and according to farmer Lynnie, this is usually 50. If a farmer only has a smallholding, the amount of sheep they shear will be minimal, and therefore may not fill up one sack. It is therefore beneficial for farmers to amass their fleeces to be collected together, something Lynnie is fighting for, despite the Wool Board demanding payments from all farms regardless (I believe this was the point).

Image: Lynnie showing the “sheets” and unravelling a Texel cross raw fleece

As Brickpits is an organic farm, producing organic meat, they also harvest organic wool. So they can fetch a premium from the British Wool Board for each kilogram. Here’s how much a kilogram of raw wool fleece with an organic premium has fetched:

• 2017 - £0.77 per kg

• 2018 - £1.05 per kg

• 2019 - £0.74 per kg

• 2020 - £0.18p per kg

It costs something like £2.76 to shear a single sheep. If you see it as a “free material”, so do not include any feed or land costs, there is still the lorry collection (around £36.05 for 50 sheets).

As the Wool Board use an online bidding system, it is the fleece buyers, who are usually the first ones in the wool fibre processing chain i.e. scourers, who have chain of command over how traceable that wool can be. Unless the farmer and then the Wool Board implement such technology as blockchain or RFID tags, how then can you even distinguish between what is organic and non-organic, or produced in a local fibre system anyway?

Images: details of raw fleece - Black Welsh Mountain cross, Suffolk cross and Texel cross

Natural dyes.

Brickpits chose to grow Coreopsis tinctoria, as Aweside and Harriet had taken on weld and woad.

Weld is a naturalised UK biennial flower that acts like a weed, growing randomly, but is attractive to pollinators, and it creates a lightfast yellow dye.

Woad is another ancient dye, coming from the leaved of the Isatis tinctoria plant, a species in the brassica family - so it is also edible, essentially. Another biennial, you have to wait two years for seed, but fortunately the leaves can be harvested in its first year.

So Coreopsis is really the one requiring less patience.

The trial.

In the corner of a barley field, a small section was planted, with three sowing methods used. The results would then inform the likelihood of growing the plant at scale - 10 acres. In order to truly understand how it would work commercially, it was left in a field state, thereby no watering and no weeding. 10g of seed were used for each sowing patch:

1. First sowing 16th May 2021, drilled very finely

2. Second sowing 30th May 2021, broadcast sown (but in bad weather)

3. Third sowing (missed the date), sown into modules and planted out (but during a dry spell)

Images: dye plant trial sowing was placed in a sunny area of a barley field to investigate how it would scale, and plot showing division between two different sowings.

Findings.

• After a month, a good amount of it was weeded in order to replicate a row weeder. However, weeds were discovered to support the bottoms of the plant - it grows spindly and high (up to about a metre).

• It had to be handpicked as the flower heads would open at different stages, and if you used a machine, you would likely catch unopened heads so reducing yield (one patch alone took 2 hours to hand-harvest).

• The first harvest was on 18th August 2021, so had taken a couple of months to germinate and flourish.

• There were issues with soil contact when broadcast sown.

Hometime.

We finished up the tour with a magical harvest of our own, and the chance to purchase ready-dried coreopsis flower heads - alongside herbal tea and Lynnie’s homemade cake. It was astonishing how she had the time to be a farmer, mother and baker.

The most illuminating part of the day, was the passion seen from Lynnie to work with the creative industries to make the regeneration of land and the regeneration of our fibre systems a reality.

Though the plant pilot was indeed small, it was a beautifully vibrant sight. The awe that is felt upon seeing a field of poppies, or flax, or oilseed rape, could be felt just as much by a field of coreopsis. It may not be a well-known source of colour even within dyer’s circles, yet it has other benefits and is relatively straightforward to grow.

Images: first harvest taken from the Coreopsis tinctoria dye pilot, and jars of solar dyes. My own handful harvest fresh from the plants drying in the sun, and a wonderful find of fresh gall nuts (used to create black).

It’s overwhelming how much needs to be set in motion in order for our fibre systems to positively change. Firstly, there needs to be the recognition of the beauty of natural fibres, and secondly, the recognition of the beauty of natural colour. Fashion isn’t going to switch completely to undyed wool garb anytime soon, but conversations surrounding the benefits of natural fibres and colour, for people and land alike, are beginning to increase. Through pilots and collaborations like the Brickpits and SE England Fibreshed, we can collectively work on implementing changes because the evidence is there to back up the necessity. Consumer habits can come once the options and the education is there. If we don’t educate the industry - and industries that add to the value chain - then how can we expect citizens to know what to do?

A massive thank you to Lynnie for taking the time to show us Brickpits, and to Deborah Barker, founder and leader of South East England Fibreshed, for the invite.