“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” - Joni Mitchell

Growing Slow Textiles is an invitation to develop a regenerative craft practice by journeying through every stage from seed to cloth with two heritage fibre and dye plants - flax and indigo. During this holistic process you’ll join a pioneering community exploring deep ecology and defining for ourselves what it means to be ‘Earth Restorers’.
Over the course of nine x 2hr monthly online meetings, you’ll be guided through the empowering skills that enabled our ancestors to sow, tend, harvest, process, spin, dye and weave their own cloth. In addition, this process will allow space for group enquiry into embodied ecology and indigeneity.

The restoration of the planet will be pleasurable. - Sophie Strand

Some of the practical skills shared include:-
  • regenerative growing principals
  • rippling, retting, breaking, scutching and hackling flax
  • drop spindle linen spinning
  • indigo pigment extraction and both vat and fresh leaf dyeing
  • hand weaving your own indigo linen pieces of cloth
More important than any expected product though will be the regenerative process.

* free seed kits included for U.K. residents only although international residents with a similar growing season, who can source their own seed are also very welcome. Some additional materials will be required later in the year and a materials list will be sent during first meeting.

What’s included?
  • 9 X 2hr monthly online meetings (schedule below)
  • 9 x downloadable Earth Rests meditation sessions exploring deep ecology
  • 9 months access (until 31:12:24) to a private classroom with meeting recordings for revision
  • Weekly Q&A with course facilitator via private forum
  • Seed kit containing woad, Japanese indigo and licensed flax fibre seed (1m²)*
  • Student work showcased @growingslowtextiles
We’ll be joined by fibre and dye specialists 10am-12pm on the following provisional monthly meeting dates (TO BE CONFIRMED)

March 16th: Seed Blessing - a full introduction to the course including website orientation, seed blessing and planting instructions.

April 20th: Being Restorative - introduction to Fibershed’s regenerative growing principals, key projects and the importance of rest to planetary restoration.

May 18th: Plant Spirit Medicine Journey with Flax and Woad with medical herbalist Pip Waller, exploring the healing possibilities of communion with plant allies and what it means to be indigenous.

June 15th: Deeper than Indigo - a talk by acclaimed author Jenny Balfour-Paul, specifically considering the folklore, myths and magic of indigo dye within various cultures.

July 20th: Indigo Pigment Extraction & Dyeing - I’ll take you through the entire process from plant to coloured yarn.

August 10th: Rett, Break, Scutch & Hackle  - Simon and Ann Cooper from Flaxland will demystify flax processing techniques in time for our harvest. We’ll also make flax dollies to bless next year’s crops.

September 14th: Drop Spindle Spinning with Allan Brown who specialises in processing, spinning and weaving native textile crops including flax and nettles.

October 19th: Hand Weaving an Indigo Linen Patch with Brigitte Kaltenbacher of Bee Kay Makes.

November 16th: Show & Tell - we’ll share our results and learning experiences.

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. - W. B. Yeats

Underpinning this experience is the fact that this relatively new ‘regenerative’ buzzword involves techniques inspired by indigenous wisdom, a common feature of which is having a better understanding of humanity’s place in it’s ecosystem through the use of practices that engender communion with nature.

Indigenous cultures make up just 5% of the world’s population yet protect more than 80% of global biodiversity – National Geographic

Our experiential way of learning challenges prejudice (racism, sexism, even speciesism!) and conventional notions of education requiring an intermediary. We present opportunities to connect directly with the wisdom of plants using concentration techniques - the way our ancestors did. Growing plants yourself is already a form of meditation but we will spend time each session giving back ‘Earth Rests’ by slowing down our energy usage with specially written elemental relaxations to enhance both personal and planetary wellbeing. This technique enables people to tune out of the dominant ecocidal narrative and into the frequency of RESToration.

The Earth rests when we rest - Ayana Young

Carbon consumption is at the heart of our environmental crisis and closely linked with what has been termed ‘grind culture’. Based on a study entitled, ‘Stop the Clock: The Environmental Benefits of a Shorter Working Week’, shifting to a 4 day working week would save the UK 127 million tonnes of carbon per year. So using the same averages, this means that if everyone in the U.K. practiced just one Earth Rest per month we would save 3 million tonnes of carbon per year. So, by participating in this course you will be giving back to the Earth more than you take which is the very nature of regeneration.