Well, schedules didn't work out, but when I moved here, I kept hearing about Patricia around the community, and much to my delight she met me for coffee, and subsequently involved me in some other adventures (she has so many initiatives, helping and caring for so many people, that I've totally lost count). Anyway, I've been inspired ever since.
At left you can see a picture of Patricia speaking at an event where she explained the results of an absolutely incredibly flax and linen initiative in Nova Scotia.
In 2013, Patricia was involved with leadership in agriculture and was interested in sustainable development. She noticed that there were a lot of nettles on her farm and instead of regarding them as an unwanted weed, she wanted to learn how to make good use of them. She started thinking about nutraceuticals or maybe compost tea.
Richard Donald was a member of her Community Shared Agriculture group and he said "I'm working with a group of professors at NSCAD college about natural fabrics and dyes and maybe nettles could be part of that."
Other NSCAD members included:
Francis Dorsey, who taught natural dyes
Gary Markle, teaching sustainable fashion, but with the frustration there is absolutely nothing local available.
and Lesley Armstrong taught weaving were profs at NSCAD is a natural dye expert
These connections came to the project through the academic lens of sustainable, local clothing. She doesn't remember exactly how everyone got connected, but a small little group of people in 2013 harvested and retted nettles from Taproots Farm to see what would be possible to do with them.
Francis was going to play with leaves about dyes.
Pia the local weaver was there too.
They had fun with a little trial batch of stinging nettle fibre. They hosted on the farm a conference for dye experts and other experts from around the world, and about 50 people in the room talked about natural fibres.
And THAT is when Jennifer Green enters -- she gave an presentation of her masters' thesis about history and flax.
TedX Talk: The future of fashion is local.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lbhej3eJPA
Jennifer Green had a dream to revitalize flax and linen in Nova Scotia
she moved to Belgium to work in fashion designing
I just want to grow clothes" - Patricia
Claire Gagnon, Sow To Sew Conference, NSCAD University, September 27, 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZLfXUIhXsUPatricia asked Jennifer to take longline flax from Patricia's flax that Jennifer spun by hand (she is a master hand spinner and weaver) to Belgium.
Patricia hired Jennifer to
Jennifer put together google map of linen
P + J arranged to go on tour of linen in Belgium and to machinery companies to find out about breaking, scutching, and hackling.
Jennifer ended up applying to NSCAD and moved back to Canada and has continued along on this project.
In 2015, Taproot Farms, which she runs with her husband Josh Oulton, started to grow flax plants.
Making flax into fibre is quite a process, and Patricia and Josh studied it all up: how to rett the flax, how to scutch it, and finally, how to spin it.
Lesley Claire and I thought about how they're going to make this project work. For a YEAR.
Claire's youtube video.
With the investors fronting up the funds, Patricia got some further grants hired some staff. From left to right in the photo below between Patricia and Josh, they are Rhea, Abi, Gabriel, and Pia. absent: Marilyn Rand and Lesley Armstrong.
Lesley has a weaving mill and studio in Lunenberg. but it can be only be used in summer months
She hired Rhea Hamlin to do a marketing plan for our machines. She then worked a season of field trials of growing different varieties of flax, and then seh was involved in testing the prototypes of the breaking, hackling, and scutching machines that Patricia and Mike Pickett had designed from the Belgian-gathered knowledge.
Rhea then helped to set up and run the spinning mill that had been made in Belfast Mini Mills in PEI. They usually produce minimills to make animal fibres but trials proved that they could work for bast fibres too.
There are two types of fibres
The two original goals were
seed to shirt
grow and spin longline linen
longline linen is special because it's higher quality
in the industry
With flax harvested and piling up in the "fibre shed," as they call it, and prototype machines ready to go, Patricia decided it was time to make stuff. Turns out, her reputation is such that a whole bunch of people jumped in to invest in this community effort when she came up with a plan. They would make stuff for twelve months, and investors would get one item per month. At least, that was the plan.
They managed to get 12 investors to raise $20,000 for the project.
Abi Hodson was a recent hired to do an internship in Sept 2017. Fashion Show in Halifax for a fashion incubator and displayed our flax stuff and when we drove home from it she said she'd like to continue with it and the only way we can do that is if we do a community shared linen model.
<catch image of Abi's card>
She brought enthusiasm, delight, and joie de vivre to her role.
Gabriel Soligo came on to help with a lot of the spinning and knitting.
Pia Skaarer-Nielsen, a Norwegian immigrant to the valley, is one of the best, most creative, productive, and willing weavers around. She got on board for the experiments.
Patricia herself did x y z
7 projects -- get details from Abi's blog.
1. January felted Slippers: Abi
2 February: woven sweater by Pia.-- and women's vest and men's vest
3.
skirt
summer garden top (P wearing)
tunic
table runner & 4 napkins
dish cloth & scrubby
felted trivet
Workshop for value-added flax waste product.
2017
we were making yarn on the Belfast Spinning Mills spinning machine and this produced a lot of flax waste from the breaking and hackling processes.
P. got connected to Mary Hark who is a magical person who has a small-scale paper-making studio in Madison Wisconsin
conference of people who own Belfast mill machine
Andrea in St. Paul Wisconsin knows
They invited P to come speak to their Wed night group.
50 amazing women in St. Paul which is really investing in Fibre arts.
Mary gave P her card.
P asked if M does workshops, and invited her to come to a workshop and Andrea (and Stu and daughter) and M came to NS in Nov. 2017 and hosted papermaking workshop
Kristie Farrier from Cape Breton came to the workshop and bought the infrastructure
P sends her flax fibre and K sends her paper
Mary goes to Ghana (2 hrs. north of Accra) developing papermaking from plant fibres in Ghana.
P spoke at Mary's university (Madison, Wisconsin?) Mary Hark, is professor in Wisconsin.
handmade paper guru
puts patricia's story in front of grads there. Creates opportunity. Tons of potential for the short fibres.
Justine knitted this cowl from the yarn that Rhea spun on the Belfast Spinning Mills spinning machine.
And as you can see, all involved are delighted to have been part of such an extraordinary project. Everyone hopes that it's the start of a larger local clothing industry, one the produces durable and beautiful clothing that people will be proud to own and wear -- and skip the foreign imports in the shopping malls. Good for Canada, good for communities, good for us.
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