Fleece & Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands

A fascinating look at the world of small-scale textile farms along the Salish Sea and their pivotal role in sustainable, artisanal textile production and the slow fashion movement.

Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands are a part of a unique geographical region that can grow and process its own raw textile materials with transparency. This book explores the region’s vibrant fleece and fibre community and introduces the public to this growing land-based textile economy.

Richly illustrated with captivating photography, Fleece and Fibre presents the many fibre types produced along the Salish Sea—including sheep wool, llama, alpaca, mohair, cashmere, linen, flax, and hemp—and explains where and how they are currently being grown, processed, and used.

At a time when the global textile industry is one of the most unsustainable and exploitative industries on the planet, the public is looking for local alternatives to fast fashion. Part sourcebook, part stunning coffee table book, and part call to action, Fleece and Fibre creates new connections between farmers, raw materials, makers, designers, dyers, and wearers.

About the Author

Francine McCabe is a mixed-blood Anishinaabe writer, fibre artist, and organic master gardener from Batchewana First Nation, living on the unceded traditional territory of the Stz'uminus First Nation with her partner and two sons. She holds a degree in Creative Writing from Vancouver Island University. She is an active member of the Vancouver Island Fibreshed network and has recently joined the Guild of Canadian Weavers. She is the past recipient of the Mary Garland Coleman Prize in Lyrical Poetry and was awarded the 2014 Pat Bevan Scholarship for Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in Portal Magazine, CV Collective, and FOLKLIFE.