Wild Fibres: Clothing From Undomesticated Plants in the City
Vložit
- čas přidán 4. 11. 2021
- This short film by Martin Borden follows artist Sharon Kallis over a two year period on her journey to make a coat and sweater-vest with Stinging Nettles and other fibre plants she has grown and tended.
Working out of city parks in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sharon's work explores what it takes to clothe oneself from the fibres at hand.
Learning new skills, working within a seasonal rhythm, help from other skill-holders and exploring the connecting threads of her own Celtic Ancestors to the Ancestors of the Coast Salish peoples' whose unceded land she lives and works on are some of the ideas explored.
Made with support from the British Columbia Arts Council - Jak na to + styl
When I learned to spin wool, linen and flax in 1981, our teacher told us that the coarsest flax shirts were terribly hard when they were new. The farm owner could ask croft people who stayed on his land to wear them soft for him. Not all had that possibility. In norway the expression to put the flax shirt on, is telling about the everyday hard work
This was truely wonderful to watch. Something I never knew was possible with the plants you used. Thank you so very much for sharing your knowledge & giftings with us. I am in awe.
Most people who weave nettle and linen know that serious levels of pounding are involved in order to produce a soft wearable garment. Lovely video and a wonderful example of natural resource use in a very creative way.
I wonder if running it through some sort of mangle or rollers would be as effective and maybe more ergonomic? 'Cause that pounding makes me afraid of tennis elbow! Also, maybe I'd just wear it and hope it softens with time and multiple washes.
I may not be understanding this - but wouldn't the handling of the nettle plant would hurt? The way she strips off the leaves of the plant - without wearing gloves... 🤯 Must be that she acclimated herself!
I love her haircut, BTW!
I'm 28 and I've been a knitter and crocheter for almost 8 years now. fabric crafts are fascinating and this video really touched me in articulating so many feelings around the process and tradition of this art. i hope to one day also spin my own fabrics and nettle is particularly alluring to me as it's really easy to grow in abundance, even in urban areas. thank you
Absolutely fascinating video! This is such a great project and the clothes you are producing and wearing are wonderful. Alas I am too old now to be able to do such things but I have made baskets and cordage from vines and leaves. I am learning to spin, I have been a knitter for nearly 80 years (I learned to knit when I was 3) but I would love to knit with yarn I have spun from the fleece myself. I am also interested in knitting with other fibres and many are now available from indie businesses here in Australia. I will not wear synthetic fibres and I wear my clothes until they go into holes and then some. I have darned since I was a child and love visible mending. Thank you for such an inspiring video. 💚
I decided to learn to make my own cordage early this summer and discovered that nettle are an excellent choice for this. My first "cordage" turned out to resemble thread which intrigued me and I was immediately hooked.
I began making nettle thread every chance I got and soon dreamt up the idea of making a nettle shirt.
Here I am researching retting and stumbled across your video. I see you beat me to it! Your coat turned out so amazing. A true masterpiece!
Hope to have something I can wear in the next couple years too 😊
Your use of nettle reminds me of the story of the Twelve Swans.
good luck
Ssmesies 😂❤
me too bro
We need more self sufficiency on you tube. This is great. Thank you 💖
This video speaks to something deep inside me and probably many others. Something about normality after living so disconnected from the origin of all necessities of life; with food in plastic wrappings, water from the faucet, fast fashion.
Oy discovered your channel now in 2024....so glad....blessings from South Africa 😊
🤩 Love how the intersection of culture and using local fibres met in your finished nettle coat! So much skill, big thanks to all our ancestors!💕
This is wonderful. A place i could have related to growing up. Out of necessity my grandmothers worked hard to keep their children warm, fed& clothed. My mom said her mom had one set of knitting needles, the needles were very fine for the yarn and made the work harder to do and the socks stiffer than needed. She used what she had. My mom knit many pairs of mens socks, coloured pattern, fancy stitch patterns, argyle, and diamond patterned socks that were knit in rows of alternating coloured diamonds that increased and decreased and joined to the sides of the alternate as she knit. She knit socks with bowling pins and balls for a friend, he wore and treasured them and wore them is his final rest. Her socks were warm and soft. My other gram had very organic basic nature skills for preserving foods for winter by drying fruits and veg. She was a lover of needle work of all strains. Her mom was a trained seamstress, who shared her knowledge with her 4 daughters. They all worked in sewing as professions, as did one of my sisters. My dad was a sickly boy so was often drawn to quiet needle arts, then sewing, & worked with a furrier for a while. Dad dress us well, 2boys, 3 girls and mom. Mom knitted and quilted to keep us warm & mended. If i could have had the tutor to show me i would have hunted and gathered as you have done. I guess the need to make was lost to the quick ready to wear market of the mid 20th century. My youngest wanted nothing hand made, knit or sewn, didnt like colourful quilts either. She is green and beige, organic too, refinishes furniture, my eldest is a graduate designer &seamstress from a college of craft and design in Fredericton, NewBrunswick, Canada on the east coast. I was my peers, who like me wanted to make and use local and gleaned materials from abroad to produce useful needed items for everyday. They found teachers and students to create and make beautiful work to shune in a darkening world. You have scratched out a place in your world to show what can be done with the old fashioned natural material that God provided from the beginning. We just needed to find it and use it. But, we wanted it faster. Industrial revolution, polution, global warming and ... get back to nature ... this world is killing us. Your work is amazing. Fifty years too late for me. ❤ what might have been?
thrilled this brought up so many memories of your own live with making and appreciating textiles!
Your story is much appreciated by me. I feel them deeply, even though I was not raised in such a way.
The ideas you express have been beckoning me for a couple decades, but I still find myself living in a city, working a job that takes all my energy.
All I want is to move myself to a place where I can gather & grow & make & contribute.
I’m 62, so not much time left.
But your thoughts are sitting splendidly in my bosom, nudging me forward. Thank you.
This video inspires me so much, you’ve put into words everything I’ve been figuring out since I started paying attention to the climate crisis. I wish we humans could just make a living doing traditional craftsmanship instead of being profitable to the economy and the rich. I’m only starting on my journey of learning different crafts and fabric and cloth making looks so interesting, your coat looks amazing! So much respect
thanks for your comment, yes the great challenge -bridging this kind of work, and respecting the time and labour of learning skills connected to land-based living and the current paradigm of typical western-based human lifestyles- it is a wide gap indeed. my hope is many of us finding ways to step out of the mainstream system where ever possible adds up to something...
Living such a life, "we" could support about 1 percent of the current population.
There is no climate crisis there is a one world government crisis, a war crisis, a food crisis, an economic crisis. a fuel crisis. We need to know how to survive. We need to learn the skills that we will need to be as self sufficient as possible.
I know that in an apocalypse I want her in my community 😊
It's rather amazing, all of the work and expertise that goes into making clothes. It makes me appreciate our history of ingenuity as people, in terms of observations of nature and then plying different tradecraft in order to make clothing out of plants
The coat is very beautiful.
Wow I am blown away! I have been wanting to work with nettle and fireweed for so long and never knew where to start, this video has given me so much information to work with - thank you. Your work is so inspirational, I wished I lived near you!! I have some nettle on my allotment here in the UK and although at the moment it is full of beautiful coloured butterflies I am sure that when they have all gone I will be using it for fibre, I have just had a wool carder made, and have a spinning wheel so I guess the world is my oyster, I love love love what you did with the fireweed. I am honoured to have found your channel. Thank you all the way around the world and back again!
Let's not forget that nettle is also delicious when young. A true all rounder! Beautiful coat, and such perseverance to get it right. So far I've only managed a bit of rough thread for mending a bird feeder 😏
Wow exceptionally beautiful work, can't imagine the amount of work that goes into making cloths out of plants.
Omg I can spin my milkweed fluff?!!!! Goals this year!
this woman is my spirit animal
Captainess Fantastic! But better.
What a fabulous & inspiring story…I have learnt so much ….bravo !
Thank you for sharing your art
Not only is this video amazing for it's content and the journey, but it's a huge source of information for my writing. Before this, I hadn't seen fireweed outside of a picture in a book. I had no concept of the height it can grow to or how rich in color the flowers were. Or that it could be used for textiles. The research for my writing had it set aside primarily as a natural medicine, but this has given me so much more to work with. To be able to see how someone takes the plant from harvest to finished design is mind blowing in a such an enticing way. I love it. Thank you for sharing this.
Enjoyed your video and skills you have . You are blessed
I owe my interest in foraging wild edibles to Stinging Nettles. Oddly enough, it was due to researching how to remove it from my garden. Since then, I've found six wild edibles in my small backyard. This video has given me something else to consider. Thanks.
This resonates with me, as nettles as food got me into nettles as cordage too. Foraging got me into nettles. I also do my own pottery from wild clay. There is an inexhaustible and fascinating world of possibilities with ancient crafts, and combining it with modern tech really elevates the excitement for me (3d printing molds for clay etc.)
@@DraftingandCrafting Finding and using clay is on my bucket list too!
Oh I want that coat
Thank you. Wonderful to see and hear about your processes, your ethical stance and of course the beautiful finished products.
Thank you for releasing this video…so inspirational! As I sit in my small corner of the world, Seattle-WA, foraging, green stripping, preparing nettles for cordage to use in sprang loom work this video connects dots to a larger community. My heart swells…!
I remember seeing so much nettle along the side of the I5 years ago through the Seattle area! ... I also remember a patch as we were turning off to go to a Trader Joes somewhere in the city before a camping trip... the little median/roundaboout was full of nettles. good luck!
Making natural fibers from scratch is a topic that has been on my mind for the longest time now.
I've been wondering what would be the most optimal/efficient path to produce practical clothing in nature.
Like for example, if you just found yourself on an uninhabited island with lots of different plants and no animals, what would you do to make clothes...
Really interesting video, thank you for sharing :)
You are welcome! There are so many incredible plants for fibre use, many we have 'forgotten' and need to reconnect with ❤️
There's a Grimm's fairy tale about a girl that had to spin and weave shirts out of stinging nettles for each of her 7 brothers. They had been turned into swans or geese and she was in charge of them becoming human again. When I was a kid I thought it was difficult because of the stinging, now I think it was also about the time it would have taken. She did all but the last one, he lacked one sleeve so he had a bird's wing for an arm (explanation for infirmity?).
@@lisawintler-cox1641 ‘the wild swans’ was written by Hans Christian Andersen. A princess who made shirts out of nettles for her eleven brothers, who’d been turned into swans by an evil queen.
This was the funniest video of watched so far about using nettle as fiber. Thank you it was so educational and well explained ❤
the way you just grab a fistful of fresh nettle and pull off the leaves.. with your bare hands!
Very inspiring, Ive been thinking about making my own nettle fabric for a while now
She's so real for this
fascinating process
I love that this exists so much.
fascinating. reminds me of what I read about in Biblle times. Thanks for telling this story. Ideas are running around in my head.
Thank you for sharing this. It was simply lovely. ❤
This is so cool
That top also looks so awesome. I grew linen, but when tried to rett it, the snails ate the fiber, next time it over retted in 3 days. The Dwarf Nettles looked just like the plant that a Bot. profesor id'ed when in college.
sneaky snails 🐌🤭
The gleaning is fascinating! I think I never understood exactly what gleaning is before watching this video. The other garments Sharon is wearing are fabulous and amazing too!
Wow, very sturdy, bears up under all the wetting and handling
Excellent video my friend. 👍👍😍😍🌹🌹🌹
I love this video so much! Thank you for sharing.
You are so welcome!
Fascintating - the whole process is beautiful and the end product has a purity
Wow
Whoops! Hit the button by mistake...and i saw Sally in the credits....off to bother some hedges....tho they're really pokey here in Pendleton!
Awesome movie it's so I teresting that you were able to make that garment from harvested plants that you grew I'm so impressed 😊
No way I can't believe dog bane is good for something! This looks like fun to try.
this is badass
Have you checked out videos by Sally Pointer?.....your loom looks very familiar! Wonderful work, and I look forward to
very inspiring story! Living the dream!
🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Wow. Spectacular. You’re a full artist. ❤
Where is this community?
We are in Vancouver Canada
Amazing! Inspiring! Beautiful coat! Great job! Very much needed!
Fascinating subject! Thank you!
Now playing want a stand of nettle. Fantastic job!!!
So great! Thank you so much
Thank your for this video! I love your jacket so much! I started to make cordage some time ago and it’s so inspiring to see to where you have taken this path!!❤
Thank you so much, really inspiring
This is beautiful, in so many ways. Thank you for sharing and inspiring 💫
thankyou for such an interesting look at plant based yarns.
What a wonderful journey. Your garments are absolutely beautiful !!
Absolutely inspiring. Thank you for sharing!
Shared. Thank you!!!
Wow! I love this idea so much. I lived in Vancouver for many years and it’s inspiring to see that usable fibres are really all around us! I will have to start keeping an eye out around me and I would love to drop by the society sometime when I am next there!
AMAZING! I loved watching this, what an inspiration you are. Thank you soooo much ❤
What a fabulous story and process. Thankyou for filming it.
I really enjoyed your video, sitting here spinning flax from a distaff. I've been working on recreating an Ainu twined-warp loom.
fantastic! thanks for sharing that
This is life goals for me.
I truly love this video thank you so much for sharing your knowledge about plants and create something unique😁👏🏽💚✨
J'adore votre travail!
Truly inspiring, thank you for the knowledge share which is so valuable.
Just so very interesting. 👏👏👏👏👏👏
I grew cannabis in northern california many years ago. We retted the fiber and made yarn, then chopped up the remaining stalks, boiled them down and made fiberboard and paper from it and we left some of the seed oil in a hot bright window for two years and it polymerized the top and we peeled it off and put it on one of the little pieces of fiberboard and waterproofed it. All of this was done under the direction of Richard M Davis, curator of the USA Hemp Museum. He wrote some great books on it too. Look him up.
Side note, we did all of this without electricity.
sounds interesting
I have been interested in making cloth with nettle as well. I watched a lot of CZcams videos making nettle yarns-- mostly, Korean videos. In Korea, it's called Mosi (모시) and it's still in use.
It seems the harvest of nettle should be done when it's starting to turn yellow. If it's green, the fiber is no good. But if it's too mature, the resulting fiber is too harsh. And, the process of cutting & stripping plants has to be done in day for softer fibers.
Would love to see more of your work with fire weed please. It’s so beautiful, but rampant too, like nettle. Much woodier though
I will try and get some footage this fall when I am harvesting, even if its just crappy phone video vs martin's beautiful and edited work
It's inspirational, fascinating and vey interesting!
So inspiring. I would like to learn more about using wild plants to create textiles.
Thank you for this inspiring video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
This woman gorgeous
Thank you so much
You're most welcome
Looks like something useful to know in a pinch, but I have a hunch that linen and cotton are softer and more comfortable.
¡Que belleza! Me ha encantado su trabajo, no había visto algo similar antes. Me dejó muy sorprendida, me encantaría hacer algo así.
So so so inspiring! Nettles are my spirit plant and I have interacted with them in various ways, but only for the first time last spring have I begun the journey of processing them into fiber, and at this point only cordage.. though I still have some partially processes fibers that have yet to be spun...I think I am intimidated by the process really. Now I am so curious about the drop spindle, as the full spinning wheel seems like too much for me to get into at this point. I recently bought a rigid heddle loom and have fallen in love with the process and am already curious to get into weighted warp looms. I use only all natural fibers but have felt too intimidated to make them myself - but the intimidation has lessened. So grateful to have discovered your work - much needed inspiration to keep me moving forward and honing in on skills and picking up new ones. Are you in Canada? I wish I could take a workshop or work alongside in the studio there!
Nett!le love is absolutely a thing!
Inspiring work. Thanks for sharing! One of these days I'm going to pick up a spindle and learn to spin all the fibers. Been growing and storing colored cotton - green, brown, tan, reddish. Of course, I will need to start learning on an easier fiber first - short staple cotton has a reputation for being difficult.
amazing you are growing your own cotton! I would jump in to learn with spinning your cotton even if it is difficult, just use a very light weight spindle- you are more motivated to spin that then anything else I would think- it is a challenge but not impossible... maybe we should do a fibre and skill share trade? if you mail me fibre we can zoom tutorial and I can give you some core basics? I have never processed cotton from the bole before but would totally be game to try!
Really curious to know if you two did the fiber & learning exchange. And if yes, please give us an update -- how's it going? Sending warmth, love and positive energy your way 😍🌿💜🌱 🤩
I bought a takli spindle to spin the packing cotton that comes with my vitamins. I spin it (and sometimes ply it) and use it to repair the holes in the heels of my Hanes socks. I may not have to buy socks again for a long time!
Fascinating video! Thank you so much for sharing this. I was wondering if you could please point me in the right direction? I'm looking for any wisdom about processing milkweed stalks, as I have quite a few plants and had already planned to incorporate some of the seed floss into my hand spinning, but had never thought about using the fiber from the stalks as well. Thanks in advance! Hugs
pat attention to the stalks in late fall to winter- look for the time when you can pull the outer velvety bark off the inner fibres after the outer bark has lost that velvet-like skin.. here on the west coast, some falls are too damp and mild and fibres rot before i can harvest, but you may find the standing stalks in the snow are perfect mid winter if your autumn is cold and dry...
Such a wonderful
Production. Thank you for sharing. I live in the Olympic peninsula. I have several acreage of huge nettles . We have a small cabin there. It is VERY wild and rural. We are very much are inspired to learn this process. As is my daughter. With the long dry summer we have had, could the harvest this time of year still be usable?
hi Theresa, I have just begun harvesting here this year, and i think the retting will be faster, as the waxy surface has basically already disappeared from the drought- the fibres may not be as strong, but absolutely still worth harvesting and exploring i think!
I don't know how you're able to get your dogbane plants to produce so many seeds! Neither of my local patches produce very much at all! I had to wait two years!!
Messed up trying to deal with nettles, probably as hands hurt from stings and let it dry. Thinking of growing flax on empty lots...so much to do to get to yarn..
In the last few days I have come across bobbin lace making, I remembered watching many videos in the past about nettle textiles and thread making and I thought to myself hmm I wonder if these two artforms and products could actually help one another? Galicia Bee Designs was one lady I had watched and liked, I am curious what you think of the joining of both of your artworks? I am just putting this out there on my own accord just to help. I hope that is ok? I have heard that in the past many American Indian tribes used willow bark and green brier to make cordage and thread from ship's rope to thread for sewing. I have many lineages in my family but 2 are Hopi Indians from Arizonia area and Susquehannock Indians in Pennsylvania.
I love this thank you. I can you share the simplest way to process the dogbane fibers? Getting the thin outer bark off has been very tedius.
push the harvest as late as you dare without the fibres rotting- then I find storing the stalks for several months or a year helps before stripping and rolling fibres.
Wow, quite awesome to watch, and is that wild top lookswoven and?, so many colors/shades from diff fibers?) at 1st part of film same as "wild" top(looks knit in front) when using spinning wheel? How does she work w Nettles barehanded, as see she rubbed all lvs off (son said backs of lvs -no sting). Do the thumb rings help with fiber processing? Think have hundred more questions, will see other vid on nettles. Also see around here who wants to play/make a local garden w more local plants- soap root, Yucca....notice fibers on Sages..Thank you
the knit top at the end is the nettle knit shirt i am working on throughout, the back has a section that is pink that is the dogbane, or dogbane and nettle blend, and there is one row of white on the top back that is the milkweed fibre. some of the other colour difference is from retting the nettles in different ways/times of year. As for the nettles, everyone's body chemistry is different, most nettles don't bug me to much but actually numb my hands. and yes, the thumb rings give me joint support as I am hyper mobile and my thumbs overextend, these help keep my thumbs from overcompensating and bending beyond where they should
Curly burdock. I found a whole world of amazing handcrafts just trying to find a use for the crazy huge curly burdock growing in my yard. Now I'm on the hunt for nettles. Still no use for the burdock, but this is fascinating. Thanks for your documentary.
I'm not sure about curly burdock, but regular burdock also provides fiber for spinning etc, in addition to that, burdock is edible (younger is better, apparently) czcams.com/video/3xrgvf6KrRY/video.html. For recipes and further plant fiber experimentation, check out Sally Pointer on CZcams. She teaches prehistoric fiber processing and "hedge bothering" to forage for natural ingredients. She is a great teacher and very inspiring.
@@april5666 I love Sally Pointer! Thanks for your reply. I have a ton of curly burdock I don't want to waste.
ha! i was going to direct to Sally as well, i am sure she has posted videos of pulling fibres from the burdock, though not sure how fantastic the resulting rope is beyond the novelty of trying, it is always worthwhile at least learning new ways of looking at the plants we see as troublesome in our midst!
Incredible. I've been working with nettles trying to find the best way to process and get the fibres out. Maybe this ear I can do something with it.
Best of luck!
Thank you, is the top at start of film same one? Have used Milkweed fluff, and tried stem fiber. Few places have Nettles, though lots in spring of Miniature Nettle (~5-12").
The top at the beginning is knit from linen I grew and spun, the nettle appears towards the end. The miniature nettle you referring to is likely false, or dead nettle, it is great for rope making if gathered after it dies back in June.
How does she handle the nettles without gloves/sleeves? I would be so badly stung!
Thanks for this inspiring video! Is it possible to visit the gardens/studios? I live on Vancouver island and am learning to process nettles and other plant fibres. I would love to visit!
for sure! they are both public parks- trillium in corner of malkin and thornton streets- south edge of strathcona neighbourhood, and Means of Production is on the western edge of China Creek park in mount pleasant area
@@earthandgleanerssociety7622 sweet! I did some planting in the Means of Production site many, many years ago with the EYA.
@@sistermoon6506 you must return for a visit then for sure! You won't believe how the garden has matured❤️
Thanks for showing the many processes involved. I'm curious about the nettles. Are they a different variety than the stinging type? I noticed you did not wear gloves while de-leafing them.
They are stinging nettle indeed, the sting acts more like a numbing effect after initial sting which is actually great for arthritis!
@@earthandgleanerssociety7622 you're brave
Fireweed looks like Dogbane. I guess not. I just ordered some seed to plant in my area. I'll make a sort of wet land area on my property to grow this stuff. Gotta try it.
The plants look quite different, but they are growing with each other in our gardens which was maybe confusing. Note that fireweed here is 12 to 16 inches up in the spring before the dogbane pokes up, if I interplanted them again I would put dogbane on the south side of the planted zone. Good luck!
This is something i've wanted to do for a long time, partially because i love to research pre-history, but also because i'm bloody well allergic to lanolin. But i've come to the conclusion that to be able to really do this - you need money and space. When you live paycheck-to-paycheck and sometimes not even that far, there's no way.
I agree. When you're stuck in this fast-paced system it's hard to escape. But as a hobby, you can start fibre-crafts. Every little bit of moving in the "right" direction helps... it's like contributing to a small revolution.
I feel this! my work started from a point of having no spare cash for art materials, and wanting to just step out of the system as much as possible in my artmaking. it is slow work, and that is in part the point. it is also very grounding and I think the best therapy out there for free... give up the notion of any end goal and just begin. good luck
@@earthandgleanerssociety7622 great advice