Autumn
The weather has changed dramatically this week! It’s raining! And for farmers and those depending on moisture to grow forage crops, this is GOOD NEWS. By the middle of August, our fields are dry and yellow and the sheep are foraging deeper into the forest to snack on blackberry tips and salal. If we had to purchase feed year round, our operations would be financially unsustainable, so when the rains come before temperatures drop, we benefit from a second flush of grass and other forage crop growth. The price of hay has increased 30%, from $15 per bale to $20 per bale in the last 12 months. When you’re feeding a bale a day, it gets expensive fast!
We manage our pastures through a loose rotational grazing system. At our Thetis Island farm, we have five large fenced pastures over about 10 acres that can be divided into smaller sections if needed. We use these pastures in a series of different ways. We may want to divide the flock into breeding groups or separate the lambs from the ewes for weaning. We keep our ram and companion wether in their own area for most of the year. And some pastures are better than others for different times of year (because of being wetter or drier). But primarily, we use this system to allow vegetation to regrow without the pressure of grazing. It’s remarkable how quickly a pasture greens up once the animals are removed. And since we have a mix of cleared pastures and semi-forested areas, we make use of places that get more sun (which dries the ground and encourages plant growth) and those that get shade (which stay cool and green into the hot months).
This year, we increased our pasture area by about 60 percent by enclosing new areas and clearing zones that had become clogged with blackberry and thistle. That’s the thing about this land; it is healing from the impacts of colonization; management practices that were primarily subduing and extractive in nature. So now we are in the process of mitigating the harms done during that period and the subsequent period of neglect and abandonment. For me, that means being sensitive to the natural zones within our land and giving them what I think they may need and then watching the results and responding. Sheep have a soothing effect on land. They smooth it out and green it up but they need our help to do it.
Stay tuned for details of a project which we hope will rejuvenate one particular area by holding moisture in the land, producing more green leafy growth for a longer period and also providing forage for our sheep in the driest months of the year.
Smart like a sheep
Back in 2017, when I first started knitting -yes, I learned in my forties- I came across a wonderful book called Living with Sheep, by Chuck Wooster with photographs by Geoff Hansen. Obviously, I had already taken the leap from maker to grower, in my mind at least. The book was less instruction manual and more philosophical treatise although practical knowledge was also conveyed.
The thing that stuck with me most from that book is- well, two things actually. The first is his description of training sheep to follow a bucket of grain. This is not hard to do, you give your sheep a little grain at the same time and place every day and then after about a week, when you walk to the barn and pick up a bucket, the sheep follow you like magic. This is not complicated but it gets to the heart of farming, which is a kind of cross-species empathy. The successful farmer understands the reasons behind events and processes on her farm. An inexperienced farmer may chase their sheep around in a frustrating attempt at control by intimidation. The peaceful farmer develops a relationship with her sheep and understands their motivations: in this case, grain coupled with predictability.
The second big lesson is about the intelligence of sheep. People often make jokes about how stupid sheep are. Well, no doubt there is some variation in intelligence between breeds but Wooster suggests that intelligence is in the eye of the beholder. He says that we recognize predator intelligence more easily because we are predators and because our culture values aggressive competitive behaviour. Sheep have collective intelligence. They need to stay in a flock. A sheep alone is a terrified and unhappy animal. Well it turns out that humans are that way as well.
I believe that people also like to know something that we can relate to others, which is the excuse I use to explain the next batch of fallacies about sheep. That they are incompetent at birthing and nursing their lambs. As soon as I say I have sheep, people want to know if I have to ‘help’ with births and if I have bottle babies. Their version of ‘help’ seems to have a lot to do with reaching elbow deep into a ewe’s vagina and pulling lambs out. And their convictions about bottle babies are equally vulgar.
It’s okay if you have said these things or thought them. We live in a culture that sees the female body as incompetent and sees sheep as the epitome of the feminine. Soft and scared and stupid; unable to do the single thing they are bred for, raising their own young.
As a shepherd my most valuable asset is time and attention. I watch and I pay attention but I try very hard not to intervene. I do not have a large flock and I do not raise breeds that are predisposed to difficult births but I have not yet had to assist with a birth and I have only once had to supplement a lamb with formula and that was in a case that I myself could have prevented had I been more on-the-ball. The worst damage can be done by pulling a lamb that is not ready or removing a lamb from the flock-and heaven forbid- raising it inside a house.
Most births proceed perfectly on their own; all the better if the ewe has ample room and plenty of fresh water. The rest of the flock will generally exit the barn while a ewe is birthing and come in again afterward to sniff and visit ewe and lambs. I do try to give each ewe a stall of her own for 2-3 days during and after birth so that lambs can flop down and sleep in the corner without getting stepped on or bullied. I do not stay up all night watching. I look at the sheep more often in the lead-up to lambing. I watch the way they walk, the fullness of their udders and any changes in energy or breathing but then I go to bed. And when I get up in the morning, there are lambs!
This is not to say that no help is ever needed; obviously sometimes it is. And other farmers have way more experience than I do and I’m not saying they are wrong. All I’m saying is that animals and humans generally are good at natural processes and that it’s okay to watch quietly and listen; sometimes it’s the best and only thing.
Defining a movement
How do you define the movement we are engaged in?
Dear friends,
I realized that from my perspective, there is sort of an ‘old way’ or systems of thinking about textiles and the textile market and our part in it and then some newer ways. Here is my attempt at defining the New Textile Ecology.
New Ways:
Close to home. More of us are learning to grow, prepare, spin, weave, dye, design and sew textiles at home or in small businesses where we live rather than leaving these tasks to strangers who live far away
Developing skills. Loads of people (this movement is really gaining momentum) across all ages, genders and economic strata are committing to or dabbling in acquiring the skills required to make textiles. There are thousands of Youtube channels about these things and they are getting millions of views. This is not just time idling for grannies. This is a massive movement and a lucrative market.
Using recycled or ‘waste’ materials. Upcycling materials- from tanning hides to pelletizing low grade wool to shredding discarded clothing for pillow stuffing- takes an important role in our new systems thinking.
Fair labour practices. We all know about sweatshops and factory fires and horrendous wages and special economic zones and we know we don’t want to support them! This does not mean we must withdraw from the global marketplace entirely but it means holding ourselves to account for the effects of our actions. Supporting sustainable practices and worker cooperatives are a part of this new textile movement.
Awareness of providence is growing. We are working on creating breadcrumb trails of information linking users (previously consumers) with farmers, designers, mills, sewists, dyers and retailers, all of whom play important roles in textile systems. Linking users with producers is a way of taking responsibility for the impact of our choices. Educating ourselves about the chemicals used in waterproofing or dyes helps us make decisions about what we wear and buy.
The end game! Understanding of where our garments go when we’re finished using them and of how they break down during their use cycles (eg. microfibres released in the laundry) plays an important role in how we choose textiles
Repairing. Learning to mend. Going through the long slow process of darning socks and sweaters and not buying the cheap thing that is going to pill and tear after a month of use next time.
Sharing economy and textile literacy. The role of guilds and non-monetized sharing is important and is part of transcending class divisions. Understanding basic garment construction, fibre production and fashion allow us to live richer lives in contact with the real world of materials.
Design and fashion. Creating our own clothes and other textiles allows us to imagine ourselves in the world looking how we want to look. Making things; playing with shape and surface design and pattern is so empowering! A large part of this movement is making whatever clothes you like for whatever body you have and celebrating physical and visual diversity.
Atomized business. This movement includes many many small business; many of them run from home and many of them (but not all!) run by women who are experts at finding their own unique niche in their part of the world. Rather than giant farm/ mill business, we are now seeing a plethora of farmers, shearers, wool brokers, mills, dyers, designers, yarn shops and teachers.
Thoughts on thinking
We’re deep into fall weather now and for me and my family, it is a season of massive change. I am moving house, my mom is moving house, one son and daughter-in-law are having a baby and my other son and daughter-in-law are reunited after a summer apart and going on a long trip to Australia and Hawaii. The moves are both welcome and we have good places to go that will better suit our needs in the coming years and the trip and the beginning of the next generation is beyond exciting!
Each of these changes include some challenges as well and they do include letting go of the current state of things as the next phase comes into being. We don’t know exactly what the next phase will be like! We have our hopes but also our fears and there is a vulnerability that is hard to ignore.
As we move into this turbulence, one of the crucial ways we can manage is to manage our thoughts. It may not be possible to irradicate fearful thoughts but we can intentionally add positive affirmations. We can say things to ourselves and to each other that affirm truths and also hold out a candle into the darkness of the unknown about exactly what we intend and what we envision into being.
The time of year with its thinning of the veils between worlds also lends itself to swift manifestation and blessings. It is the time of year when we plant next year’s garlic and make notes of the past year’s lessons. We revisit our dead and let go of dreams and troubles that have lived out their course.
In this moment for my family, I imagine the following:
a healthy wonderful baby and mama birthing and bonding easily with their father/ partner caring for them both
a new community for my mom in which there is ample silliness and creativity
a new space for myself and my animals that is safe and prosperous
a safe trip and adventure-filled trip for my son and daughter-in-law
I feel thankful for our safety, well-being, community, opportunity, connection, prosperity and the love we feel for ourselves and each other going out into the world in circles of healing.
Blessings to you and your family. Blessings to the world.
Fall things
Today is my youngest son’s birthday and it’s the time of year for getting firewood split, picking the last of the tomatoes and for sheep breeding!
The gestation period for sheep is exactly 5 months and we generally like to lamb at the beginning of March. We prefer this timing because it’s not so cold that lambs are in danger of freezing and it’s just in time for the hungriest grazing right when the grass is growing fastest in April and May. If we want to lamb in March, we need to breed in October. For us, this simply means putting the right ewes in the pasture with the ram. We don’t use markers or conduct ultrasound tests. We just get the animals in the right place and they take care of the rest.
Right now we have only one ram between the two farms. He’s a wonderful 3/4 Romeldale CVM ram named Rusty. Romeldales have extraordinarily soft dense fleece; different in length and lustre from our existing BFL/Cotswold/ Romney flock, however, crossbreeding makes a lovely fleece. Rusty is not at all aggressive and the ewes are all in excellent shape so breeding will naturally go well.
This is also the time of year when we decide who will stay and who will go and sometimes we get a surprise, like when we sheared a yearling wether named Italy. ohhhhh the lustre! ohh the range of colours from silver to dark brown. We spent some happy hours sorting and picking through fleece to send to the mill. First on the list was a batch of moorit (reddish brown) CVM fleece to be blended with our angora rabbit fur. Below, I am including some photos of our grey CVM fleece batch.
I hope that wherever you are, you have family coming to visit and delicious food to cook and hopefully some creative project to get your hands into!
Coming up soon!
We are so excited to announce our plans and new offerings for the year ahead!
First, we have yaaaarrrrnnnnnn!!!!!! The new year’s yarn is almost here. Yes, we are tracking the shipment and it should be here this week! We will have lopi and 2 ply worsted weight lamb’s wool yarn like last year. Please email us or check Instagram for this year’s colourways.
New this year is 2 ply worsted weight in a natural grey colour! This is a gorgeous toothy, bouncy yarn with excellent stitch definition. We will also experiment with overdyeing the natural grey and will share the results on social media.
Third, we will have a spectrum of local Vancouver Island grown spinning fibres. These are a little further down the pipe but I’m so excited I wanted to share the news. 100 % breed rovings including black or white Romney, Canadian Arcott, Texell, Black Welsh Mountain, Bluefaced Leicester, Polled Dorset, black and brown Alpaca, and a fantastic blend of our own Angora (rabbit) with lamb’s wool.
We also plan to put together some natural colour non-felting sock spinning kits made with Pender Island Suffolk and Suffolk cross fleece. We’ll say more about this when the kits are ready to go.
And last but not least, we’re going to offer Spinners’ Advent calendars! Give one as a gift or enjoy it yourself; these will be a chance to sample 24 different breeds and colours. Yayyyy! Spinning and Christmas; the perfect match.
New Wave Textiles
In the spirit of articulating intentions and goals, how do we here at New Wave see our work in creating a new textile system?
We imagine a new textile system that is environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, creative and non-conformist. We imagine locally produced and processed fibres grown sustainably; safe to recycle or compost or wear forever! We imagine workers paid fairly and working safely! We imagine people of all genders, ages and body types wearing what they love and feeling good. We imagine buying less; making our own and repairing what we have.
Specifically for us, this means raising fibre producing animals with kindness and with attention to maintaining healthy pastures through rotational grazing. We limit the number of animals on a given piece of land so that the grass has time to renew itself. We have our fibres processed at a series of Canadian fibre mills and we minimize shipping by clustering loads with other fibre farmers. We use acid dyes set with citric acid. The process uses minimal water and we reuse citric acid baths as much as possible. Our yarns hang to dry over a woodstove.
We are honoured to collaborate with you in your choice to buy local wool and make your own clothing and other textiles.
If you want to know more about the sustainability textiles, please read Rebecca Burgess’ book, ‘Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy’. The book is available from your local independent book store and from Amazon.
Want to know more about our farms or our yarn and fibre production process? Drop us a line! And please tag #newwavefibre on your creations on social media.
With love and humility, we can make a difference.
Years turning
It is January 1st and I am taking a moment to reflect on the year past in order to get perspective and set intentions for the year ahead. It sounds so nice and concise like one of those lifestyle aspirations photos on Instagram. Whelp. It’s not quite like that!
The truth is I have been really struggling the last bit. I am sick (haven’t been tested but I am very sick); I’m snowed in (pretty but lonely); I am isolating because of the previous two points; I’m recovering from the loss of an intimate relationship; I am in the middle of what I can probably just own as a permanent process of re-imagining my career/ work life and evidently I am also struggling with a deep sense of self pity. Oh, and the land where I farm and live is under threat of sale and I may have to move away.
In the past year, my partner was diagnosed -after years of suffering- with a serious chronic disease, he suffered catastrophic mental health impacts and he moved out. There was not much I could do but hold on. I tried being kind and a lot of the time I managed it. In a lot of ways, his departure was a relief.
Also in the last year, I faced the loss of a trusted long term employee in my landscaping business (cheers to him for getting a union position!) and thus chose to sell the business. This transition was also a bit of a relief as in the year previous, I’d been separated by geography when I chose to move to the the island and then the pandemic made travel difficult. I had not been really present to support employees or customers so it was time to let go.
A part-time job I picked up at the local marina turned into a full-time job including some management duties and it reignited an old passion I have for hospitality and especially for dining. I’m still not sure if I should reinvent my landscape design business or what. At the moment farming and fibre production are not paying enough to support me solely.
Anyway! on to my list of accomplishments from the year past. It is not complete but it is actually not so bad either.
survived! yes, it has been tough but I’m okay.
transitioned farm from a two person to a one person operation.
sold my business and didn’t spend all the money!
adopted a delicious old Cherryville loom by way of a trade of a tree for the community centre.
figured out how to set up the loom without instructions.
streamlined and improved my small batch dye approach.
processed, dyed and sold our first year’s batch of yarn!
adopted 3 registered German angora rabbits
had our first season of CVM and CVM cross lambs- what beautiful animals.
Well, thanks for being here with me, following our little farmy, sheepy, rabbity project. Articulating the victories, the struggles and the goals helps. And yes, being a part of creating a sustainable textile system is still what we’re doing.
Silvo-pasture
Located in the Salish Sea bio-region and dedicated to sustainability, we have the challenge of developing pasture on land that is forested, rocky and wet.
Our Thetis Island farm is in the process of developing a new pasture area on a south facing hillside. The hill is gentle so it drains well without being treacherous for footing. The southern exposure means that it gets adequate sunshine. This leaves us the jobs of thinning the forest enough that it is easy for sheep to walk through and manage access to the developing clearings in such a way that organic matter can build the soil and the grass doesn’t get overgrazed. And fencing.
This month, we’ve erected over a kilometre of livestock fence around this area and have begun the thinning of the forest and limited grazing of the new pastures.
Between two islands
So a boat is on the list.
New Wave Fibre is local to the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. The ‘Gulf Islands’ are located on the southwestern corner of Canada. They are comprised of approximately 20 islands, ranging in size from 9 square kilometres (Valdes) to 300 (Texada). Most islands have ferry service but some do not. The islands are beautiful with second and third growth forests, rare plant species and protected coastal waters, owing to the mass of the much larger Vancouver Island to the west.
We comprise two farms and three sites on Pender and Thetis Islands. Our farms started with Jodi who came to Canada from New Zealand in the 90s. She worked training horses and dogs in Northern BC and now runs an organic blueberry farm on Pender Island. She runs her own flock of of sheep on the same land and has used their fleece to make handspun handknit barn socks and other treasures for many years.
In 2019, Emily bought three gorgeous ewe lambs from Jodi when she and her partner moved up to a family property on Thetis Island and New Wave Fibre was formed. The timeline for a fibre business is long. The land must be patriated (fences and barns built); sheep grown and bred; fleeces sheared and processed. Even the turn around time at the yarn mill we use is 6-9 months. Then the yarn must be dyed and labeled, photographed, packaged and shipped. At the time of this writing, we’ve just shipped our first parcel of yarn but the journey is already many years in the making.
Now, you may wonder how we operate between two islands. We communicate almost every day via text or phone. And when we need to move fleece, yarn or other equipment back and forth from one farm to the other, we have two ferry rides and a two hour drive between us. It’s about a five hour journey. If we had a boat, we could do it in 20 minutes. So a boat is on the list.
What’s up in the studio
It all begins with an idea.
I have been working on lots of new handpainted colourways on our bulky weight single ply. I dye three skeins of yarn at a time and mostly I dye in groups of three colours. I usually start with two colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel (complimentary colours) and then the third is the intermediary. Sometimes this third colour literally gets placed in between the other two and sometimes it acts as a background colour (I add the dye to the bath and stir it around before adding the yarn). And sometimes I add it at the end as an overall swish effect or as little highlight spot-sprinkles.
Also in the studio at the moment: I’m almost done washing a gorgeous black Romney fleece that I bought from a neighbour last year. It is huge and soft. Not especially crimpy but I think it will card up beautifully to create a gorgeous woolen hand spun yarn. I’m allso considering making some hand carded batts for sale, possibly blended with silk. I enjoy washing fleece and I don’t mind carding but picking (pulling apart the fibres after washing and before carding) is extremely slow.
I am trying out a first pair of knitted and felted slippers. I have always wanted felted slippers. It just seems like the perfect warm tough material to have on your feet. So far, I’m two thirds of the way done knitting the first slipper. In this pattern, you knit the slipper, add decoration, felt them together and then stretch onto the foot of the intended wearer. I’m a bit worried that the two won’t be quite the same, though I did use a row counter to keep track!
I am also working on several garden design projects at the moment. I have a garden design and installation business based out of Victoria, BC. I LOVE designing gardens, however the draw of working with wool and textiles offers more instant gratification, so I have to push myself to sit down and focus on measurements and precise drawings and plant varieties.
Lastly, I am making a shirt for my partner. It is a naturally dyed (with goldenrod) cotton shirt. The pattern is Twig and Tale’s Breeze shirt. The dyeing is done. Now I’m piecing together the pattern that I printed out from the digital file. The pattern is really well written with lots of advice for modifying the fit and the finishing. It also includes instructions for French seams, which is super exciting!