Winter Update
We finally got our snow day. It’s pretty wet and icy and not the predicted ten to twelve inches–but that’s okay! It still gives us a minute to sit down and catch up. This year, the off-season for the farm has been ON season for Lady Farmers trying to launch this new enterprise. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
In production news, we now have working samples of five sustainably grown and produced garments. That means we’ve tweaked the designs into their final stages and have moved them into a trial period of washing, wearing, comparing, etc. We’re new at this and learning the ropes as we go, one step (and hurdle) at a time but still clear on our goal of full transparency for every piece– from seed to sewn to sold.
In mid-February we held our “Farm to Fiber” event at Ewe Fine Fibers in Charlottesville, a beautiful new shop on Main Street that shares our passion for locally sourced sustainable fibers. In line with our commitment to educating consumers, we gave a presentation about the problems with fast fashion and how efforts like Lady Farmer and Ewe Fine Fibers offer an alternative to the current toxic and unsustainable system. It was a successful and enjoyable evening thanks to a great turnout and sustenance provided by Feast! and Mountain Culture Kombucha.
In late February, it was time for treasure hunting at the LA Textile Show! We left a sunny, warm spell here for an unusually cold and windy southern California. Who knew? But no matter, we had business to attend to. Sourcing fabrics that fit our sustainability goals has been our biggest challenge and LA is definitely the place to go for seeing what’s out there. Even so, we still find that only a very small segment of the textile market meets our criteria, once again affirming our dream that our most reliable textile source could eventually be—LADY FARMER! Yes, we see ourselves someday in the not-so-distant future using the land around us to provide the raw materials for our products, which brings us to the next bit of our adventure.
Hemp! Less than a week after returning from California, we found ourselves seated in front of legislators in Annapolis testifying in favor of House Bill 902, a legislation that could possibly allow us to begin growing our own as soon as next spring. We are cautiously optimistic about that, but whatever happens it’s pretty clear that hemp is on it’s way home! We’ll be posting more about hemp soon so if you’re interested in learning more about it – stay tuned!
That pretty much brings us up to last week– and the return of winter. But spring won’t be long now and once it moves on in these Lady Farmers will be getting their hands in some dirt. More events are on the way, details TBA. We have so many plans and ideas and being a part of this whole new emerging paradigm is beyond exciting. As always, thank you for joining us!
– Mary & Emma
