Dyeing and Darning Workshop Series - a residency at Cal State Channel Islands

It was a pleasure to do a week-long residency at Cal State University Channel Islands in Camarillo in conjunction with their Cesar Chavez week celebrations. Thank you to Pilar Pacheco of the Center for Community Engagement who made this possible!

The workshops brought together the stories of border crossings and quilts made from migrants clothes. We explored the concept of re-localizing our fiber resources and the traditional skill of darning to mend a hole. We dyed wool with cochineal beetles, darned holes in clothes collected on the border, and discussed how migration and the strength of our local economies are interrelated.

Looking at the cochineal beetle, a source for a brilliant red dye - this jar is filled with cochineal imported from Peru.

The concept of localizing our fiber resources comes to us by way of Rebecca Burgess and Fibershed, a movement that began in northern California as a means to re-establish localized fiber infrastructure, skills, and inspiration. For one year, Rebecca wore only clothing that had been grown, processed, and made within 150 miles of her home. An important part of her work is to connect growers with artisans and mills that can process raw materials into wearable goods. Every year that we outsource these industries we lose more of the infrastructure to create our own products here in the U.S.

The dye vat with Navajo churro sheep yarn inside (one of the oldest breeds of domesticated sheep), and a jar of locally-harvested cochineal beetle in the background.

The tie-in here for me with migration involves Americans taking responsibility for the health of our own communities -- physically, spiritually, and economically. Re-localizing our fiber knowledge and resources means we can rely less on destructive trade relationships while creating models for community self-sufficiency and sustainability. Plus, working with wool and natural dyes is beautiful and addictively fun!

The finished yarn dyed with cochineal!

Beyond brainstorming our potential to create locally-produced clothes and fiber goods, we also practiced our mending skills. Darning is a way to mend a hole (especially in fibers that are knitted or woven). It is essentially creating a tiny weaving over the hole that ends up being even stronger than the surrounding material. I originally learned to do this from the wise old lineage of Youtube, and you can learn to darn too, here. You just need a needle, yarn, and a lightbulb (really!).

CSUCI students darned holes in clothing collected from migrant trails on the US-Mexico border. 

As we worked with the migrants' clothing, we discussed what it felt like to sew on this material and transform it. Many students described feelings of awe and humility. Their finished squares will be sewn together to become a giant crazy quilt of mended holes in migrants' clothes.

Students discussed their reactions to handling migrants' clothing from the border while actively transforming this charged material. The shirt above was found on a migrant trail and reads "Intelligent, On Time".

A student's finished piece! These squares will later be combined into a large crazy quilt showing many people's contributions.

Thankfully, this work is continuing next week with a workshop at the Cafe on A/Acuna Gallery and Cultural Center, an amazing hub for community organizing and activism in Oxnard. This workshop is open to the public! We will gather from 6-8pm on Friday, April 24th to dye, darn, and discuss our local fibershed. Please RSVP if you are coming: mending.patriotism@gmail.com. 

So many thanks to the amazing artist Molly Brolin, who came to assist and took these beautiful pictures.

Thanks again to Cal State University Channel Islands, the single largest supporter of this project, and to the students who wholeheartedly participated in these workshops.