I attended the Local Fiber Conference last weekend in Trumansburg, NY. Trumansburg is about 10 miles outside of Ithaca. And if you’ve been to Ithaca you’ll understand how beautiful the area is. And that area seems to be very environmentally friendly and has a BIG locavore movement. Pretty much always has been. It’s a nice area and it was a nice ride (it took me about 2 hours to get there). It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Ithaca and as I was driving there I couldn’t figure out why it had taken me so long to get back to that area.
Local Fiber is a new organization that’s primary goal is to get fiber producers together to help them find ways to get their product to market. According to their website:
LocalFiber works with small flock fiber producers in the Finger Lakes/Central region of New York. Small flock producers throughout the northeastern US face numerous challenges in getting their goods to market, from shearing to accessing the market.
LocalFiber is small flock fiber producers coming together to collectively identify and address the challenges they face.
LocalFiber is a community made up of the farmers and makers that value locally produced animal fibers. Together we are a part of a strong local economy.
I went to this conference hoping to learn more about fiber, fiber animals, and the process of getting the fiber from the animal to a usable form for crafting. And while some of that happened, I think the conference was more for the growers and not so much for the makers. A lot of what was discussed was way over my head. There was a lot of terminology tossed around that I hadn’t heard before. So what started off as a slow start (to me) turned into some good demonstrations at the end of the conference.
I attended two demonstrations on dyeing, since that is what my immediate interest really is, specifically natural dyeing. The first demonstration was on using acid dyes, which is interesting and definitely have their place. I liked that the instructor has an alpaca farm right in Trumansburg. The conference organizers definitely tried to use local farmers, growers, and makers as the instructors for the conference. The second demonstration I attended was on natural dyeing. Dyeing with cochineal to be exact. The instructor was Jose from The Mexican Weaver and he really knows his stuff. He is self-taught but you wouldn’t know it. I think the pictures speak for themselves. You start with a cochineal dye bath–you get red. Then you add cream of tartar–you get purple. If you add lime juice to the cochineal–you get more of an orange. So on and so forth. He hand dyes all of his wool and then weaves these beautiful tapestries and rugs.
There were also tables for show-n-tell. You could bring things that you were working on or that you produced on your farm. It was interesting to see what local growers, farmers, and makers were doing. I brought one of my hats that I used local-to-me fiber on. But you can see there are many variations of yarn, roving, spinning, weaving, etc. There was even a ‘new breed’ of sheep there! Ellis Hollow sheep. I feel like the one ram is giving me the ‘what the what’ look in the pictures above!!
I did meet some really neat people while there. Marcia from Undeniably Loopy produced that fantastic hand felted duck above and was super nice. We discussed the possibility of me using some of her yarn for my dyeing projects. One of the reasons I went to the conference was to hopefully find local, or at least made in NY State, yarn so I can start my dyeing process. I’m not sure I achieved that goal though. Time will tell. These conferences are always good for networking so you never know what one meeting or one conversation will lead to down the road.
That pretty much wraps up my take on the conference. It was a Saturday well spent. I enjoyed the drive, the conference, the demonstrations, the photo ops, and what I took away from the conference? Natural dyeing is where it’s at!! Stay tuned for more on that in the very near future.