Growing Outloud

In honor of the first-annual Rust Belt Fiberhsed Symposium: the potential for place-based textiles which takes place this weekend (January 26th and 27th) I’m excited to bring you my first blog post!

I will be modeling my outfit which I created for Rust Belt Fibershed’s project “One Year One Outfit” in the Symposium fashion show on Saturday, January 27th. EEK! How am I going to model the underwear?!!!

Below is my artist’s statement, titled Growing Outloud, that I wrote for the outfit I created in one year from fiber sourced within a 250 mile radius of Cleveland. As scary as it is for me to be modeling on stage in front of everyone, the passion and excitement that I feel when I create my own clothing and am in touch with the people, place and animals that surround me supports me in sharing this work that is so special to me.

Practicing my model moves in my closet.

This feels so vulnerable, but…

I can do it!

Growing Outloud

For each of these three pieces:

• there are at least 4 or 5 that didn’t work

• 8 or 9 that didn’t get made

• 10-25 rows that were done then taken out to start over again

• 2 pieces started – 1 ripped out 3 tmes that currently sits unfinished, 1 stopped after 1/3 of the way through

• losses – 1 piece finished and lost–a hat, I wear these pieces out in the world!

• 3 years of learning to spin, knit and crochet which I started in 2020

What you see here are my final three pieces, made to the best of my ability, right now. These three pieces are standing on the foundation of hours of work, trying, failing, trying again, getting frustrated, feeling blocked, getting discouraged, not having faith in myself, self-confidence down the drain – I can’t do this, I don’t belong here – and a ton of growth.

One of the hardest parts of this entire project for me was deciding THESE ARE THE THREE PIECES that represent me, right now, where I am. The End. This thought dominated my mind both consciously and subconsciously for an entire year starting with our first meeting in March of 2022.

One year aIer I started this project, in the beginning of March 2023, I had a realization: Really these pieces represent a journey I’ve been on and a continuation of where I’m going, there is more, I can keep doing this. Ahh, that feels better, now I can decide what to do.

Ask the farmer who raises the animals, sheers and processes the fleeces and spins the fiber – what do you think this yarn could be? Bridgette Winters of NYWoolCHQ said the yarn has structure and holds itself up. It could be an awesome pair of balloon pants. I start to make pants, and the pleasure of crocheting this yarn showed itself to want to be a skirt.

Knowing I wanted to make a bralette top I started off trying an intricate, detailed design and realized, my bunny Patches’ fiber doesn’t want to do that. It wants to fluff and halo and drape. Showing off the fiber meant changing the design, and so you see (in the photo above) the bralette.

Intentionally wanting to support Alaura Pittman at Ironhorse Homestead, I purchased 2 skeins of Victor the fawn-colored alpaca’s yarn just to see what they were like. I was surprised to see in the package a gift of a mini skein of grey mohair! This small gesture of kindness had me so inspired it sent me confidently off to make my last piece – underwear. You’ve gotta have underwear under a skirt for goodness sakes!

I learned so much about myself, fiber, farms and yarn, the meaning of connection and community. And my biggest takeaway? When I’m feeling discouraged, unsure and scared:

Do it anyways and see what happens.

a story

Everything starts with a story, right? So here I am with a story of my story. Come here to read and see the journey, the mistakes, the steps we take towards regenerating ourselves and the land. As humans we connect and understand through stories and I intend to weave some for you here.