Words by Ren Lezeu, Photographs by Bronte Edwards On a pleasantly overcast Saturday, attendees of the 2nd Annual Flock Together Festival gathered at the historic Ridgewood Ranch just south of Willits, California, to enjoy a day of farm festivities. Aimed at “blending the grit of agricultural work with the joy of community gathering,” Flock Together […]
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Fiber, Dye, and Community: A recap of Fibershed’s Spring Market
Words by Ren Lezeu, Photos by Noelle Gaberman Eager gardeners, dyers, and fiber enthusiasts made their way to the Fibershed Learning Center in Point Reyes Station at the beginning of May to enjoy a day of community, learning, and textile-oriented demonstrations at this year’s Fibershed Spring Market. Built on a network of affiliate producers, the […]
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Old Crop, New Tricks: How Golden State Linen Is Reviving American Flax
Words by Siri Thorson, Photographs by Paige Greene There’s a real magic to linen, and it only deepens over time. Softening with every wear, naturally antimicrobial, it’s a hardworking fabric that evokes something ancient, elegant, and timeless. Indeed, flax (the plant that produces not only linen fibers but flax seeds and linseed oil) has been […]
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How Splendid Took Climate-Beneficial Cotton From Farm to Finished Product
For many brands, it’s easy to have an interest in locally-grown, climate benefitting fibers. It’s actually taking the leap to move that material through the supply chain that is hard. At Fibershed, we developed the Climate Beneficial Verification program to help bridge that gap and support companies who want to make the move from […]
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The Future of Soil-Regenerating Cotton: A Tour with Bowles Farming Company and Fibershed
Words by Cassandra Marketos, Photographs by Paige Green This fall, we brought 67 people, including teams from some of the world’s largest retailers, knitting manufacturers, and technical assistance providers, to Bowles Farming Company in Merced for a field tour during the cotton harvest. Our goal was to show attendees what it truly means to invest […]
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Climate Beneficial™ Holiday Shopping Guide
The holidays have a way of pulling us back to the basics: what we use, what we value, and who made the things we reach for every day. Within Fibershed communities, those answers always start in the soil and move outward—through the growers tending fields and flocks, the mills keeping regional skill alive, and the […]
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Indigo Field Notes 2025
Location: Fibershed Learning Center, Point Reyes Station California Three Northern California Fibershed members & producers, Craig Wilkinson, Rimiko Berreman & Heather Podoll, have collaborated with the Fibershed Learning Center (FSLC) in Point Reyes Station California to grow several varieties of Japanese indigo / Persicaria tinctoria from multiple seed sources. One source included seed collected from […]
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Creative Innovation: Melding Old and New Textile Technologies
Written by Ren Lezeu Innovation deals with generating value through improvement or newness, and comes from the practical implementation of ideas. When applied to the world of textiles and viewed from a sustainability perspective, innovation can mean finding ways to curb the use of synthetic fibers and minimizing the harmful outputs that come from textile […]
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What We Can Do to Make California’s Responsible Textile Recovery Act Better
Photography by Paige Greene. California is taking a bold step toward tackling one of the most overlooked parts of our waste crisis: textiles. The Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (RTRA), also known as SB 707, directs CalRecycle to create an extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for clothing and other textiles. The law sets an […]
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Why truly regenerative cotton isn’t cheap
Across the world, organic farmland is estimated to account for just 2.1% of total farmland. It accounts for less than 1% in the United States. And these low numbers have stayed troublingly static, even as consumer demand for “better” food and fiber has skyrocketed over the same period. Why the inertia? Because transition is difficult […]
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