join the
regenerative clothing pioneers
Are you tired of feeling powerless, waiting for the fashion industry to fix the problems it's caused?
People have been growing and making their own clothes for at least 20,000 years. We became reliant upon ecocidal fashion corporations less than 200 years ago.
But now is an exciting time, ripe with the potential of a more equitable, beautiful future! Our heritage textile plants and the matrilineal skills that transform them from seed to cloth, are returning to remind us how to live in harmony with our environment and each other.
All the technology and science in the world can't do what these plant wisdom keepers can - anchor people back into the reality of how precious planetary materials and human labour are.
"We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon and we got to get ourselves back to the garden."
- Joni Mitchell
Join our growing community
Justine first offered the Growing Slow Textiles course to volunteers of the #HomegrownHomespun project in Blackburn. She started this Fibershed-inspired flax and indigo growing collaboration with Patrick Grant and Superslow Way in 2021 and together they grew the UK's first indigo linen cloth in over 100 years. Justine went on to help produce #WomanGrowsJeans making British fashion history. Growing Slow Textiles is now an annual event building an international community of folks with the skills to grow their own cloth.
INTRODUCING...
FIBRE + DYE PIONEERS CREATING THE BEAUTIFUL, EQUITABLE FUTURE WE ALL KNOW IS POSSIBLE... NOW
We’ll be joined by our specialists via zoom from 10am-12pm on the provisional monthly meeting dates below (TO BE CONFIRMED.)
RECONNECT WITH THE PLANTS THAT CLOTHED HUMANITY FOR 20,000 YEARS (BEFORE FOSSIL FUELS!)
During this 9 month gestation from seed to cloth you'll discover what over 600 generations of our mothers, mothers knew - how to grow indigo linen. We'll share:
- 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
- how to remedy 'grind culture' with meditative Earth Rests Yoga Nidra
These skills speak to us from a time before ecocide, when humans understood how to live in right relationship with their environmental kin. These are not head-locked intellectual theories, this is a hands-on, embodied initiation. We are not just talking about regeneration, we're doing it!
MARCH 15TH 2025
Seed Blessing - a full introduction to the course including website orientation, seed blessing and planting instructions.
APRIL 19TH 2025
Being Restorative - introduction to Fibershed’s regenerative growing principals, key projects and the importance of rest to planetary restoration.
MAY 10TH 2025
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 in colonialist countries.
JUNE 14TH 2025
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 19TH 2025
Indigo Pigment Extraction & Dyeing - I’ll take you through the entire process from plant to coloured yarn.
AUGUST 16TH 2025
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 20TH 2025
Drop Spindle Spinning with Allan Brown who specialises in processing, spinning and weaving native textile crops including flax and nettles.
OCTOBER 18TH 2025
Hand Weaving an Indigo Linen Patch with Brigitte Kaltenbacher of Bee Kay Makes.
NOVEMBER 15TH 2025
Show & Tell - we’ll share our results and learning experiences.
SKILLS EMPOWER YOU WITH QUALITIES MONEY CAN'T BUY
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.
I'M JUSTINE
I'm a natural textile dyer, commercial indigo grower and Fibreshed coordinator who recently made fashion history by producing the U.K.'s first pair of 100% homegrown jeans. This involved me learning every skill from seed to garment and initiated me into an embodied understanding of natural materials and human labour that changed how I felt about fashion, consumption and life forever! Hand-spinning for 3-4 hours everyday for a year to produce almost 5 kilometres of linen yarn, felt like coming home to matrilineal wisdom that had been hidden in my ancestral muscle memory. I have a deep kinship with both flax and indigo that I love to share with others hearing the call to be the change.
"I let go of trying to do things by the book. I trusted my instincts and got to know the plants. I was just so elated at the first sign of growth coming out of the soil. So this element of the plants as teachers has just been so profound to me. This has got me closer to plants in a way I haven't experienced before."
Amanda Walker
“I don’t think I will see textiles the same way after this class. I do feel like they’re really precious the things we’ve created and it gives you a totally different way of looking at textiles. I really had a wonderful time and I never would have thought I could grow and process flax.”
Jennifer Bonner
"Working with flax has been such a revelation and so exciting! It felt liberating and growing it in the garden gave a real sense of connection with the past and heritage craft and the importance of maintaining those skills."
Alex Lowman
“I have so enjoyed this year and it has changed my soul.”
Debbie Munro
“Your constant reassurance that this is a slow process and that this is something to be embodied was just so helpful.”
Kate Dickenson
IS THIS INITIATION RIGHT FOR YOU?
You don't have to grow your own jeans but are you ready to create a patch of resistance against fast fashion and help grow a more beautiful future for clothing?
It's such a tiny thing. Just a little patch to mend your jeans with. It means nothing to most people but to those who have undergone this process, it means the world. Many are moved to tears to realise that with this piece of cloth, they've become part of a movement of creative mavericks restoring the planet.
In fact, it's no small feat to pour hours of love, skill, time and determination into a square of indigo linen that means you can avoid buying new jeans. It's a profound talisman of hope and a constant reminder of your commitment to being a good ancestor.
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.
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. - W. B. Yeats
