No matter who walks in the door to my fit studio, by the time they are up on their bike, I have learned something fascinating. Sometimes it relates to the fitting; did you know that one of the dangers of being an environmental educator is that you can develop repetitive strain injuries in your wrists from puppet shows?!
But often enough, folks just bring in their smart, interesting selves and in the course of a few questions and answers I am gifted a glimpse of the world from an adjacent window.
This past weekend, it was the concept of a fibershed. Essentially, a fibershed describes the social and economic geography of how are clothes are grown, dyed, designed and fabricated. Awesome stuff if you are a fibernerd such as myself. My customer mentioned how a woman felted a wool vest by bike and thought I might like to check it out a little video in which this is mentioned.
Well, heck yeah! And you might as well.
Except for notions (buttons, zippers, etc), everything in Rebecca Burgess' wardrobe has been grown and designed within 150 miles of her home. But until putting her closet on a diet one year ago, nearly all her clothing was produced far from home, and that made her a very typical American.
I learned more about the woman who felts-by-bike here. Y'all might see me biking around this winter with a trailer full of wet soapy wool, hitting every speed bump at full tilt.