Sustainability matters

Guild meeting 20th of February 2022

This meeting incorporated our AGM which was quickly dealt with. The reports are available on the website in the members area. 

We then had our fibre swap which was held over from the Christmas meeting where members brought wrapped packages of either yarn or fibre to swap with other members – everyone seemed pleased with their swaps.

During our show and tell session Arianne showed a crochet shawl that she had made recently whilst learning to crochet. Fiona showed us a number of knitted hats that she had made using a Fairisle Fisherman’s Kep pattern and Christina showed some cloth woven from a stash-busting spin.

Our talk was given by Karen Adams of KAIA Clothing – a company that she set up just prior to the pandemic.  Karen creates ethical clothing using natural materials created with the least possible pollution. Alongside this Karen is on a mission to inform people of  the high cost of fast fashion as it creates around ​1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year and uses polluting processes that contribute to further loss of biodiversity.  She demonstrated identification of  a few fibres, small pieces of cloth from wool, bamboo, banana leather & polyester,  using a burn test. In simple terms natural fibres, whether plant or animal based, in burning will turn to ash. On the other hand petroleum based products – and these are in around 70% of new fabrics in the form of polyester – burn with smoke that smells like chemicals or burning plastic and turn into hard lumps.

 
When buying fibres, yarns or fabrics, Karen advises looking for transparency around the product journey and certification of origin. Also for cellulose products look for production being in a closed-loop system.  If simply described as aco with no further explanation the likelihood is that it is not sustainable produced.

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