Let’s celebrate the incredible diversity of creativity and production talent in our region and explore new ways to work with what we have here! For 2024, we are proposing a year-long skill-learning challenge with a different focus each season. Will you join us?
We’ll have two activities each quarter that will explore our fibreshed’s plant and animal-based fibres, local farm resources, and fibre processing infrastructure. Our challenges will include: textile sustainability, growing and using natural dye plants and minerals, creating garments and household items with locally sourced materials, and more. We’d love you to take on these challenges to learn new skills and become more comfortable sourcing your materials from our region.
Participants are encouraged share their experiences via social media using #VIFibreshed and #VIFChallenge and in the Vancouver Island Fibreshed Facebook group, or via email to info@vancouverislandfibreshed.ca – we’ll share some of your photos and stories in the next newsletter and on blogs on the VIF webpage.
For December 2023 through March 2024:
- Repurpose an existing textile to create something new – this can be clothing or household items, but the goal is to take something that has already been made and make something else out of it that fits your current lifestyle. You could start with an item from your closet or maybe you’ll find some inspiration at a thrift shop.
- Plan a dye garden for your space (this could just be a pot on your balcony!), source seeds, and if needed, start germinating your seeds. See the Winter 2022 newsletter for links to local vendors of seeds. Dye plants can be used for more than just immersion dyeing – some plants work well for contact printing too (check out Hapa Zome printing).
Keep an eye on our website and social media channels for more inspiration as the season progresses. Please let us know how things work out! Share your work via email (info@vancouverislandfibreshed.ca) or social media (#VIFibreshed and #VIFChallenge). Our Facebook group is open to all. Selected submissions will be posted in future blog posts.