Natural Textiles

Saturday 15th – Sunday 16th of July 2023

Time: 10am – 5pm

Cost: €175 to €220

Facilitator: Astrid Adler

Learn how to make textiles from plant and animal fibres. Regain the skills of your ancestors which have been lost in today’s world of synthetic fast fashion.

Plant fibre: We will harvest nettles and process it into spin-able fibre using the technique Astrid has developed through years of experience. We will harvest bramble and learn how to make cordage with it. Other examples of fibres will be discussed and displayed and their uses explained.

Animal fibre: We will prepare wool from raw sheep’s fleeces. We will clean, card, spin and ply the wool on hand spindles and spinning wheels. We will look at how to determine quality and whether the wool is usable for wet felting.

The wool will be from local sheep and the nettles and bramble foraged on site.

Details

Please bring waterproof clothes and shoes, work gloves and a small knife with a straight blade (kitchen knife, opinel).

Price includes organic catering. Ingredients are locally sourced where possible.

Sliding scale is to accommodate people on lower incomes. Please pay what you can afford to help balance our costs.

Book soon as places are limited.

Accommodation

Camping: free

Glamping (mobile home or yurt): €5

Indoor bedrooms (limited availability): €10

Please contact us if you need help finding more accommodation options locally.

Register here

If you prefer to pay in cash, please phone or text PJ: 0874162268

Astrid started spinning wool on a hand spindle, dying and knitting it when she was 14 years’ old. In her 20th year, she spun and felted hundreds of hats.

She abandoned the practice only to become interested again 10 years ago when she started growing and processing flax. From there, she explored the processing of hemp, nettle, bramble, willow and lime for spin-able fibre and cordage. She made a replica of the earliest plant fibre shoes using lime fibre. At the moment, she is working on weaving a dress from nettle fibre.

3 years ago, Astrid decided to never buy clothing again, She is passionate about repairing her clothes as well as producing her own fabrics from the natural materials around her.