heidi iverson

Fibershed… (pass it on)

March 16, 2010

Spring has finally arrived and suddenly everything is coming to life again, including my schedule. I have a lot of exciting new projects on the horizon, and after a good long, wet winter, I am ready to get to work again.

One of the potential projects that I am most excited about, is working with Rebecca Burgess on her year long commitment to Fibershed.

Rebecca is trying to bring awareness to the problems surrounding our current textile industry, and to do so, she has vowed to only wear clothes that are made within her Fibershed.

This means that for one year she can only wear clothes that are made from fiber (wool or cotton) that is grown and produced within 150 miles of her home in Marin County.

So Rebecca is working with local farmers, like Mimi Luebbermann at Windrush Farm, local artists, like Heidi Iverson, fashion design students and local businesses… and hopefully I will get to document it all… if she gets enough funding.

Because Rebecca is eager to get this project going as fast as possible, she has set up a sort of micro-loan program with a cool organization called Kickstarter. Kickstarter provides a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers… and we have to find people to provide the funding.

So our search for people who are interested in supporting this important project has begun. And the first step is education.

So if you would like to learn more about Fibershed then check out Rebecca’s new blog:

http://fibershed.wordpress.com/

If you would like to learn more about Rebecca then check out her new website:

http://www.rebeccarburgess.com/

If you would like to help make this very cool project come to life, then please click here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fibershed/funding-fibershed-one-year-150-miles

And if we get enough support, hopefully, very soon, you’ll get to see the farms and farmers where Rebecca will get her fiber, you’ll get to see the artisans who will make her clothes, and you’ll get to see Rebecca wearing some incredibly fashionable, sustainable and locally made clothes.

Do not take stylists for granted…

February 25, 2010

With our fingers crossed, I think I can say that Rebecca Burgess and I are finished with photo shoots for her book… seven months, six blog posts, four states, and at least twelve photo shoots later.

Our last and final task was to photograph the beautiful knit pieces that Heidi Iverson designed and knit to represent spring and winter.

Seemingly not a hard task, but for some reason we didn’t quite get it right. With our focus on other aspects of the photo shoots (like: logistics, lighting, timing) and no budget for a stylist, we forgot to think about styling, and we left that job up to the models…

Which is not always the best idea, especially when the models have no idea what they are supposed to be styling their clothes to match, having not seen the knit pieces.

So when the models showed up with clothes that didn’t quite fit the look we were going for, we dressed them in my clothes, which also didn’t quite fit the look we were going for (and made me depressed about my wardrobe,) and as a result we got photos that didn’t quite fit the look we were going for.

We needed hip but not hippie, natural but definitely not synthetic, and style…. so we had to take-two. And for that we called in the professionals… like Genevieve who was born with style and knew exactly what to bring when I showed her the photo of the scarf.

And as you can see, it makes a big difference…

Notice beautiful Shugri’s over-sized and synthetic sweater?

Not her fault. Shugri did a fantastic job and she was so gracious to volunteer her time on her birthday. But unfortunately the goofy gray sweater from Ross Dress for Less (embarrassingly mine) doesn’t quite do it… in either of the photo shoots…

Both Sarah and Elizabeth also did a fantastic job being beautiful in the woods with the hats… but I can’t get over the sweater, the stupid sweater, which is also mine. This just proves that I need a stylist to come have an intervention in my closet.

So we tried again with the hats too. And having gone through the first failed attempt with us, this time the very stylish Sarah knew just what to bring to match the hats, including her cute son, River.

So, as my friend’s toddler says, “Ta-dah!” I think we did it.

I want to send out a huge thank you to everyone who very generously contributed their time and energy to make this such a fun and eventually successful project.

This is how we do it, and you can do it too…

November 28, 2009

Nature created amazing plants.

Rebecca Burgess dyed wool into cool colors… with the amazing plants that nature created.

Heidi Iverson designed patterns and knit fun gloves and a blanket… with the wool that Rebecca Burgess dyed into cool colors… from the amazing plants that nature created.

Beautiful ladies and cute children modeled the fun gloves and blanket that Heidi Iverson designed and knit… with the wool that Rebecca Burgess dyed into cool colors… from the amazing plants that nature created.

I took photos of the beautiful ladies and cute children… who modeled the fun gloves and blanket that Heidi Iverson designed and knit… with the wool that Rebecca Burgess dyed into cool colors… from the amazing plants that nature created.

All of this teamwork is for Rebecca Burgess’s book about creating dyes with native plants from the different regions in the United States. Her ultimate goal is to help people become more aware about their fiber-shed, which means thinking about wearing clothes that are made locally, just like the food we eat. Through her book, Rebecca hopes to show people how easy it is to create vibrant colors and cool clothes from the plants that are in our own environment.

It has been a fantastic project to work on and I can’t wait to see how all this teamwork comes out in the end.