Atlas Insider
Untangling the Community Detangler
Quilting bees. Sewing Circles. Community dye baths. Local seamstresses and tailors. For generations, textiles were entirely reliant on and related to place.
Who had access to what fibers, dyes, and traditions? Who did that collection of knowledge keep warm? Fibers were based on what grew near you and what you could domesticate.
Fibers would change based on region; your needs for your climate, the environment the fiber was raised in, even who or what your family represented.
Today, we know these traditions are important. Modern fabrics contribute a large percentage of our plastic consumption. Because it touches our skin—our largest organ—constantly, we send a direct feeding of plastic to our bloodstream, ensuring we get our daily dose. If it’s making us ill, what could it be doing to our waterways? The rest of our planet? The people who live near or produce these plastic fibers?
I am on a mission to localize and reinvigorate textile traditions. I don’t care what Shein or Instagram announces we all should be wearing. I barely engage with what Ravelry says everyone is making!
I live in Nashville where it’s mostly hot, most of the time. I will not be making the Halibut sweater (or any extra-warm, wooly garment) anytime soon. I want to make things that respond to my environment—and, if I’m lucky, are from within 100 miles of it.
That means I’ve got a lot of skills to develop and a lot of people whose help I need. Regional textile production and logistics cannot happen in a vacuum, especially when the ethos of the day is “as fast as possible, however possible.”
I need to be connected to the Greater Cumberland Fibershed for pricing on locally reared and raised fibers. I need the Zuri Quilting Guild to teach me techniques and traditions. I need Turnip Green Creative Reuse for affordable supplies, and a place to off-load a stash I will never work through. I need MAKE Nashville so my bedroom can be mostly a bedroom, instead of a full studio.
And I need community.
I need a community to answer questions about fibers and patterns and designs and sizing. I need people who can inspire me and be inspired by me. I need elders to teach me the histories of textiles in this place. And I need people who want the things I make. I need people to visit their local markets and want to find pieces that help them stay warm—or cool.
The people around you are required for a healthy textile economy and tradition. Here in String City, held together by strings on instruments and on needles and hooks, there are plenty of crafty makers that need people, too.
While Nash Yarn Fest showed that Nashville can be the center of the knitting universe for a few days, I firmly believe that MDK HQ should have a strong gravitational orbit for Nashvillians.
We can support knitting groups, inspire the next generation of knitters, and help develop a local aesthetic for the fibers we wear and the things we make. We can take the strings of each knitting and fiber group around town and tie them all into a beautiful nest of Nashville crafters.
At Modern Daily Knitting HQ, we have the unique ability to support local textile businesses, feature local designers, and of course, host live music. Our online community is as robust as ever and I hope you feel welcome to join us in person in Nashville.
This is a community effort. My role is to find you and invite you in! While I’m here with Modern Daily Knitting, you can trust that we’ll have great gatherings, interesting activities, and deepen our relationships with one another.
I live in London, UK, a long way from Nashville, Tennessee! But I can read your posts and offer tips and ideas that might be helpful. I’ve been knitting and sewing since I was 5 or 6. I’m 67 now.
I’m still trying to fill my wardrobe and drawers with me-made clothes. I’ve got most of the fabrics and yarns. Now I just need the energy and motivation.
I’ve been on Ravelry since 2007, the beginning. I still check in every day. I love to see what everybody is making, what random people are making, and to record what I’m making. I participate in group discussions and knit alongs and test knitting. None of my friends or family currently knit or crochet and if I didn’t “engage with Ravelry” I would have no knitting community.
I am looking forward to the end of this summer of unbearable heat and the chance to bring out and wear my warm wool handknits. I may not cast on the Halibut sweater but I would go for the Salmon sweater and thanks to Ravelry I know I should modify with a provisional cast on instead of the pattern instructions.
Welcome Nia!
If your aesthetic is exemplified by the patchwork turtle neck vest you’re wearing, count me as 1 who’ll be eager to see more & follow along with you!
I too am trying to foster more of a local fibreshed in my neck-o-the-woods, but I am in a decidedly and emphatically animal fibre domain. We have a few fibre plants that we can cultivate & grow here in Ontario, Canada (linen, hemp), but there aren’t a lot of “elders” working with those fibres to take us by the hand, lead us along & help us out. So, for now, it’s the animal based (warmer, heat holding) fibres to build the fibreshed while we also work to expand into those plant fibres too.
Bravo to you, Nia!
Great, great initiative. I will look for something similar in my “place”, Denver.
Look forward to reading what you write as time-goes-by. I too, love natural fibers against my skin, and I can definitely get on board with the snacking and knitting!
Welcome to the community, Nia! I’m looking forward to learning from you as share your fiber journey!
Nia: thanks for inspiration! Go for it! Diane
I love your energy and enthusiasm for all things fiber arts! I live in South Carolina but I look forward to reading your upcoming posts. I am a seamstress and knitter. I try to only work with natural fibers. I love to thrift shop, also. Unfortunately for lack of space my bedroom is also my craft room but I love it!
Welcome Nia!
Yarn is my favorite souvenir and we have been known to go out of the way to find the local yarn store.(like our adventure back to Ohana Fiber Mill on the Big Island of Hawaii…just had to bribe my husband with some BBQ 🙂
I always focus on locally produced, spun, or dyed fiber and the finished project carries those special memories.
I also look for recycled fibers and even though some contain the dreaded plastics, they offer benefits and keep them out of our waterways.
The big thing I know is that anything we make will not be fast fashion and disposable which is good for us, those around us, and the big blue ball we live on.
Hi Nia!
It was so nice to meet you yesterday at the MDK Pooch Party. Look forward to lots of community fiber gatherings.
YES! This! I wholeheartedly agree that a sense of community is a necessity, especially in these trying times. Surround your self with your community! Bathe in their friendships, knowledge and wisdom. I am so grateful for the MDK and Society communities!
To MDK UX team: for those if us who read our morning email on our phones, would you kindly remove the white square with the red dot on the bottom left of every screen, which is a link to Facebook? Along with the MDK banner at the top (which I wish were smaller!), those two design features take up easily 20% of my screen’s real estate, making reading you otherwise-wonderful posts somewhat irritating. I never will connect to Facebook! It is a nefarious bad actor in the online landscape and resent being pushed to do so. Please please please! Thank you!
Yes to removing the white floating square!