One Year, One Outfit

When I was focused on obtaining my own materials, there was a lot of time spent waiting - waiting for flax to grow, waiting for deer season, waiting for dyestuff to be ready to harvest. Luckily, I made a point to spend this downtime gathering as much knowledge and inspiration as I could by taking a weaving class at Praxis, sourcing other types of materials just in case (thank God), and consuming as much content as I could find on egg-tanning a deer hide.

For various reasons, the flax and the deer hide did not work out as I had hoped. And it wasn’t until leaves were falling when I realized I needed to change everything about what I imagined my outfit to be.

So I spent the winter sourcing already tanned buckskin and teaching myself how to crochet with the alpaca yarn I was so graciously gifted by Laurel at Bluebird Hills Farm.

All in all, I never expected this process to take so much time. And even though I was told repeatedly that pivots would happen, I didn’t expect to have a completely different outfit at the end than I originally envisioned.

I learned more skills than I thought I would in the past year, but one of the most important things I took away from this experience is that it takes a village to create circular clothing like this and that’s ok! I’m so glad I got to meet so many other folks who are as invested in supporting the fibershed as I am.

I’m excited to do it again with this fresh perspective!