Fibershed began in California with a quietly radical question:
What if the clothes we wear could be grown, processed, dyed and made within a defined bioregion?
Founded in 2010 by Rebecca Burgess in Northern California, the original project mapped a 150-mile “soil-to-soil” clothing system with fibres grown in healthy soil, processed locally, worn well, and ultimately returned safely to the earth. It wasn’t just about wool. It wasn’t just about fashion. It was about land, livelihoods and long-term ecological health.
Over time, the idea spread, first across the United States and then further afield. Now there are Fibreshed groups across the UK, each exploring what regional fibre systems might look like in their own landscapes, climates and communities.
Last weekend I attended a meeting of Fibreshed Central England and something quietly settled into place.
A Room Full of Threads
Fibreshed Central England covers an enormous geography, from Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire, down through Leicestershire and Warwickshire, across to Herefordshire and Worcestershire, stretching eastwards towards Norfolk and Suffolk.
Image from Central England Fibreshed website
It is a vast and varied landscape. Different soils. Different farming traditions. Different textile histories.
And yet, when we gathered, it didn’t feel fragmented. It felt connected.
There were artists working with fibre as material storytelling. Journalists exploring the narratives behind cloth and land. Technologists thinking about traceability and digital mapping. Farmers raising heritage breeds. Designers asking thoughtful questions about supply chains and viability. People with muddy boots and people with spreadsheets - all contributing to the same conversation.
What united the room was a shared curiosity about how we rebuild fibre systems that honour land and people - systems that don’t extract and discard, but regenerate and sustain.
When you are working on something that sits slightly outside the mainstream, it can feel isolating. You start to question whether you are being unrealistic. Whether the questions you’re asking are too slow, too impractical, too hopeful.
And then you find yourself in a room where everyone is speaking about soil carbon, scouring capacity, staple length, policy frameworks, living wages - and you realise you’ve found your tribe.
That matters more than we often acknowledge.
Fibre in the Hand
One of the conversations that stayed with me was with Diana, who farms Wensleydale sheep.
Wensleydale fleece is known for its long staple length - lustrous, strong, almost hair-like in its drape. It behaves very differently from shorter, springier wools.
Image from Chilton Grounds Farm website
Standing there talking about fibre length and spinning potential might sound niche, but this is the granular, necessary work of regeneration. If we are serious about regional textile economies, we must understand the fibre itself. Not just aesthetically, but technically.
What breeds suit which landscapes?
What micron counts are viable?
Where are the processing bottlenecks?
What infrastructure is missing?
It’s easy to romanticise “local wool.” It’s harder - and far more important - to understand how that wool moves through a system.
What I appreciated about the meeting was its future-facing energy. There was respect for traditional skills, certainly, but also conversations about new technologies, mapping tools, business models and funding realities. It wasn’t about returning to some imagined pastoral past. It was about building something workable for now.
Where I Sit Within This
As part of my MA, I’m exploring the feasibility of growing and processing flax into linen within a defined bioregion - beginning here in Warwickshire and radiating outwards.
Attending Fibreshed Central England feels like stepping into a living network rather than reading about one in a research paper.
Farmers | Spinners | Weavers | Designers | System-thinkers
My flax work is not separate from sheep farmers in Derbyshire. It is not separate from spinners in Lincolnshire or dyers in Herefordshire. It is one thread in a larger weave.
And that shift, from individual project to shared ecosystem, feels significant.
If I hope to establish myself within this regenerative textile landscape, I need to show up. To listen. To share findings. To collaborate where possible. Not as someone with all the answers, but as someone willing to ask better questions and do the patient work of building relationships.
Regenerative systems are not built quickly. They are built through trust. Through cups of tea (with plenty of cake). Through field visits and trial plots and small-scale experiments that may or may not succeed the first time.
They are built, like mycelium networks, quietly underground at first - threads reaching out, connecting, sharing nutrients, strengthening one another.
That metaphor feels particularly apt here.
A Growing Network
There is something quietly powerful about a group like Central England Fibreshed. It isn’t slick. It isn’t corporate. It’s not driven by marketing hype. It’s people gathering around a shared intention: to re-root fibre in land and community.
In a world where most of our clothing fibres travel thousands of miles before reaching us, the idea of regional textile systems can seem radical. But perhaps it is simply sensible.
To know where our fibre comes from.
To understand the soil that grows it.
To ensure that farmers and makers are paid fairly.
To design materials that can return safely to the earth.
If this way of thinking resonates with you, whether you are a maker, a grower, a designer, a spinner, a student, or simply someone curious about how clothes connect to land, I would gently encourage you to join the Fibreshed Central England newsletter and become part of this growing network.
It feels less like a formal organisation and more like a mycelium web with people connecting across counties, sharing knowledge, mapping possibilities, supporting experiments.
The more threads there are, the stronger the fabric becomes.
For me, attending this meeting was a reminder that the work I am doing as part of my MA is not happening in isolation. It sits within a wider, living movement. A movement that is still forming, still questioning, still testing its edges.
And perhaps that is the most hopeful thing of all - not that the answers are fixed, but that there are people willing to sit in the complexity together.
I walked away feeling steadier.
Not because the challenge is small - it surely isn’t - but because the network is growing.
Join the Central England Fibreshed Newsletter Here
Jules x