AMBATALIA LOVES ESTHER'S PLACE

I was in need of a good long day in the country. So this Saturday, my grandma and I got out of the city for the day and went to the Fall Open House at Esther’s Place, a fiber studio and retreat center. My first visit to Esther’s was actually four years ago when I was a freshman in college. At the time I was doing a lot of felting and needed some dyed wool for a blanket piece I was working on. New to the city of Chicago and the surrounding area, I researched and researched different resources to find wool-this is when I came upon Esther’s.

About an hour and a half drive from my apartment in Chicago, Esther’s is located in the charming town of Big Rock, Illinois and run by a mother-daughter team, Donna and Natasha Lehrer. With a beautiful restored 19^th century Victorian building as the fiber studio and the retreat center, and the farm just three miles down the road, you feel as if you have been transported to a simpler time. When we arrived to Esther’s, Donna was quick to offer us tea and there were cookies and homemade zucchini bread on the table. My grandma and I explored the shop and the studio, and then we went on a 1:30 pm farm tour with Natasha. On the tour we got to feed some sheep. I met a very friendly chicken named Maude, as well as two ponies and an adorable barn cat.

With about fifty sheep on their farm as well as sourcing from other local Illinois flocks, they offer high quality, local, and sustainable home-dyed roving, perfect for any felting project. In addition, they sell American-made spinning wheels, weaving looms, and a variety of felting and knitting supplies.

What particularly interests me in Esther’s is their pride and genuine dedication to their American-made products. Esther’s sells wool from their own flock, as well as other Illinois flocks and is partnered with the USDA to promote wool, particularly that which our nations produces. “In 1965, 95% of the clothing in a typical American’s closet was made in America, today less then 5% of our clothes are made here.” (From the Fibershed website) I think it is important to question: where are the materials we are using coming from? Especially the textiles we are wearing? What are their origins?

If you also live in the Chicago area and would like to support Esther's you can find more information about classes, events, and their products on their website. And be sure to like them on Facebook. If you do not live in Chicago, there are a variety of different resources you can use to find a local wool provider near you.

Please check out Fibershed. “The mission of Fibershed is to change the way we clothe ourselves by supporting the creation of local textile cultures that enhance ecological balance, and utilize regional agriculture while strengthening local economies and communities.” (From the Fibershed website) Located in North California Fibershed is a great resource for learning more about local textile production.

Also the American Sheep Industry Association is a great resource to learn more about American wool.

Local Harvest is also a great resource. By entering your city and what you are looking for it will help you find many different sustainable goods-including wool!

Til next week,

XOXO

Bridget

30,000 year old flax fiber found in Georgia

September 10, 2009

Archaeologists digging in a cave in the Eurasian country of Georgia have come across the world's oldest textiles: flax fibers that date back 30,000 years or more.

The find suggests that string isn't as humble as it seems. It may have helped our ancestors survive the last ice age.

EnlargeEliso Kvavadze

A more than 30,000-year-old dyed flax fiber found in Georgia. It's likely that early humans used plants in the area to color the fibers.

To get a picture of life back then, scientists look at pollen from caves to figure out what plants were around when the people were. Ofer Bar-Yosef, a Harvard archaeologist, says a colleague of his studied some cave pollen under a microscope.

"Her major discovery was that many of these pollen chambers actually contain fibers of flax," he says.

Gathering Flax In The Wild

EnlargeScience/AAAS

An outside view of the Dzudzuana cave, where archaeologists discovered the fibers.

Flax was growing wild at the time. And it turns out not only to be a source of edible grain, but of fiber. These fibers were twisted — a sure sign that the flax had been spun.

Flax fibers woven together make linen, but in this case, linen doesn't mean crisply pressed summer suits. Bar-Yosef says the fibers they found in the cave were probably braided together, macrame style.

"You can make headgear, you can make baskets, you can make ropes and strings, and so on," he says.

Bar-Yosef didn't find any of those objects in the cave — that's too much to hope for 30,000 years later. But the researchers report inScience magazine that they did find evidence that the fibers were knotted and dyed — black, gray, turquoise and even pink. That's consistent with other artifacts that show an artistic flair among these early people.

Like Finding A Needle In A Haystack

The news of this ancient textile is exciting to Elizabeth Barber, a retired professor from Occidental College in Los Angeles. She literally wrote the book on prehistoric textiles.

"I mean, talk about the proverbial needle in the haystack," she says. "Trying to find fibers that are 30,000 years old really is almost impossible."

Barber says evidence of textiles already dates back 25,000 years — there are impressions of woven material found in clay. It's now clear that the technology is even older. And that fits nicely with her hypothesis that plain old string was a powerful technology, which helped people weather the last ice age.

"It totally revolutionized what they could do," she says. "On a very simple basis, think of the fact you can tie things up in packages so you can carry more. You can put out nets and snares to catch more game so you can eat better."

Fibers Probably Not Used For Clothing

We tend to think of clothing when we think of woven materials. But Barber says woven clothing was probably not around 30,000 years ago.

"There's no real evidence they wore clothing," she says. Figurines and other representations usually showed people naked. "If you were cold, you'd pull the pelt that came off of last night's dinner around your shoulders."

Instead, she says, woven clothing evolved not so much for comfort as for fashion — and it was fashion with a social purpose.

"It's not until you start to get haves and have-nots that people start differentiating themselves by, 'Look what I'm wearing as opposed to what you're wearing or not wearing.' "

So how does she explain the pink and turquoise dyes on those ancient fibers?

"We love color — our brains go 'zing' when they see color," she says.