DANBY, Vt. – Smokey House Center will be starting a new program for high school students in April, offered through a grant from The Collaborative. The program, called “Seed to Cloth,” is a hands-on, multisession workshop, where students will learn about the natural fiber research work happening at Smokey House Center in Danby, Vt., with Andrea Myklebust, fiber specialist.
Over the course of five sessions held on Sunday afternoons, students will turn plant and animal fibers from raw material into spun yarns. They will explore the natural dye plants that grow in Vermont, and how to dress a loom, culminating in the weaving of cloth from the materials they have made. At the end of the series, students will go home with new skills, and a truly local textile they have made themselves; cloth rooted in the land.
The series is free, but space is limited, and those interested should reach out to Andrea at community@smokeyhouse.org.
Smokey House Center is currently in the middle of a multiyear research project, partnering with the University of Vermont Extension Northwest Soils and Crops Program, which will help develop sustainable textile fiber production and processing in Northern New England, beginning with onsite cultivation trials to develop best practices for growing bast fiber (flax and hemp).