Against the grain: those pushing the boundaries in the woollen industry
I’ve travelled down to Harlech over the summer for a few days, and am sitting in a stone cottage in what feels like the middle of nowhere, the sun streaming in through the window. Deborah Barker, who runs Southeast England Fibreshed, stares back at me through the screen, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase behind her.
Fibreshed is a grassroots organisation specifically focused on place-based sovereignty and as soon as I wanted to write a piece on those pushing the boundaries within the sector, I knew I wanted to speak to Deborah. We get straight into talking about other ways of working, to which Deborah said:
“It’s about getting away from the idea of supply chains and creating local supply networks. With a network you get equal stakeholders, so you’re bringing the designer, farmer, the spinner, the weaver, everybody working together.
“One of the things I hear from farmers is that it really gives them a sense of pride when they know where their work will end up.”
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