A nettle fibre workshop idea was floated, and it all came together rather quickly by contacting artist Sharon Kallis from Vancouver’s EartHand Gleaners and enticing her over to Gabriola for a few days. The Nettle Love event was born; a one day paid workshop on Saturday Feb 15th, plus a free “spin-in” the next day, open to all.
On Saturday, Sharon lead an in-depth 6 hour workshop about harvesting, processing, and spinning stinging nettle fibre. We were also fortunate to have Snuneymuxw Knowledge Keeper Dave Bodaly open the workshop and speak a bit about nettles from an indigenous perspective. The workshop took place at the Rollo Senior Centre, the first time we have used that space – it worked very well. There were 9 participants, locals, as well as people who came from Thetis Island, Cumberland, and Nanaimo.
Sharon shared so many insights about working with nettle – all the steps of growing, harvesting, retting, storing – before we got to the fun of stomping on the dried stalks to break the wood pith. We then peeled them and began combing and carding until we had spinnable fluff. Sharon recommended using a drop spindle, and effortlessly demonstrated how to spin. We all struggled a bit with the spinning, but most of us managed to produce a length of spun fibre. While we worked on that, Sharon showed us many of the tools that can be used, as well as finished garments and samples. She also talked about the similarities and differences between flax, hemp and nettle.
We had a potluck lunch that included nettle spanokopita and nettle seed energy balls that Sharon made. It really was a nettle love fest!
A sample of the comments we received:
The Saturday was immersive, fast paced and everyone seemed absolutely absorbed from beginning to end. Participants were very involved, and keen to try everything (with varying degrees of success of course).
Sharon is a force of nature, talking for pretty much 6 hours straight, and giving us so much information. There was definitely a LOT, but I was able to keep up, and a lot of things finally hit home, having dabbled with flax now for a year.
We got home last night at midnight feeling so inspired and full of hope for community after our weekend with you all – an incredible thing indeed when thinking of the times we are in.
It was a great workshop! In terms of the content, it was just right for me, as a fairly experienced spinner and forager. I feel confident to try nettles for textiles again. The only thing that is sad for me about the workshop is that we have a whole nettle growing season before we can harvest any nettles.
If you’d like to be kept in the loop about future Fibreshed events on Gabriola Island, please email gabriolaislandfibreshed@gmail.com. Follow our activities at our newsletter on Substack: Gabriola Island Fibreshed Newsletter