New York Fibershed

The New York Fibershed is expanding the work of NY Textile Lab to establish a homebase within New York City that connects  the urban population to our place-based Fibershed, extending 300 miles out from the city.

We hope to unite regional land stewards who are engaged in cultivating fiber and natural dyes  along with their city counterparts in urban farming, community gardening, artistic creation, sustainable design,and eco-activism  to  the citizens  who call this city their home. Our goal is to build a welcoming and accessible network that fosters community and craftsmanship at the local level. Our Fibershed strives to create a more resilient and sustainable future while engaging in advocacy, learning, and collaborative opportunities.

The New York Textile Lab is a central project of the New York Fibershed and continues to operate within the same 300-mile radius of NYC. Textile Lab is working to bring together New York designers with local fiber producers and manufacturers in order to grow an economically diverse, regional textile supply network. Its mission is to decentralize our textile systems, and bring regionally sourced and processed materials closer to designers so they can create products that add deep value to our communities and the environment.

NY Fibershed (300 mile radius, including NYC, the greater NY area, and neighboring counties) is on the lands of the Lenape, Unkechaug, Haudenosaunee, Tockwogh, Shinnecock, Quinnipiac, Wampanoag, Mohican, and many other Indigenous people’s past, present, and future. We acknowledge the devastation that colonization has done to this land and its original peoples and how it impacts the imbalance in our current Fibershed, where predominantly white landowners get to farm. Working to repair these relationships, heal this land and restore balance is imperative in the work we do.