LocalFiber — Weaving a New Economy From the Ground Up

When I started selling yarn, my family looked at me askance and and said, you know, nobody's gonna pay twenty-five dollars a skein for yarn when they can go down to Walmart and get five skeins for $25. And I said I'm not competing with Walmart. My product is totally different from what Walmart's offering. Welcome to the Ithaca Local Economy Lab podcast. Where we examine new and innovative businesses, organizations, and programs that are functioning as part of the new economy in Ithaca, New York I'm your host and neighbor, Dea, and together we'll explore some of the ways, both unusual and common, that everyday people are moving towards a more inclusive, balanced, and functional economy while leaving the oligarchs defend for themselves.

Today we have with us Lisa Ferguson, past president of the Local Fiber Collective. Local Fiber is the thread that ties together fiber farms, artisans, makers, manufacturers. services and buyers into a supportive, mutually beneficial collective throughout Central New York. They help independent small micro and cottage businesses bring natural regenerative fiber to market in all its beautiful forms. Welcome Lisa. Thank you. So I just want to start with with you personally, um you have are a a former president of the local fiber collective and you are also a farmer yourself.

You run Laughing Goat Fiber Farm. So why goats How did you get into goats and how did you get into fiber farming? So my aunt taught me to knit when I was nine and I did the usual thing. I got the cheapest yarn I could and I made whatever I could think to make whatever I was brave enough to try. Uh and I'm the I happen to be the oldest of nine children. So as each of my siblings went to college, I knit them a sweater. And each time it got a little more advanced in skill and one sweater I made was a two-tone green alpaca sweater which I had designed it um I had just made cross country skis and mountains and trees and things like that.

But I was so impressed by how wonderful the sweater was when I was done. Um and I attributed that to the natural fiber. So that made me want more natural fibers, which were naturally more expensive. I was a young mother, we didn't have a lot of money. natural fibers were much more expensive than acrylic. So the next thing that I thought was what I have to do is I have to spin my own. And then Okay, it's fine to spin my own, but how about if I um grow my own? Wanted to get alpacas, but they were very expensive then Alpacas had only been in the country for a few years at that point and they were still pretty pricey.

But goats were cheap and I didn't realize how wonderful their fiber was. Now I prefer it over alpaca for many things For most things. So I was able to get a couple of Angora goats for twenty-five dollars apiece and that just started I just started a love affair with the animals. My husband has asked me several times, can't you just buy the fleeces? And uh my response is always, well, but I I love the animals and so I don't wanna uh just So you have a relationship with the animals as well. Is that is that common among fiber farmers in the area to have a closer relationship with animals than maybe other farmers who raise animals for c as a commodity I think so.

There's one member who she got her PhD and then that was it. She closed the books and she said, Now I want sheep because she had just fallen in love with the animals and I think everyone has their bias I know another n another young farmer up in Rochester area and she started out as a 4-H'er with Lincoln Longwolves. And at the time people told her that their wool wasn't worth anything. She had people telling her to throw away the the fiber from these sheep. And if you've ever seen her sheep, they are gorgeous Stay wool is so beautiful. She's currently having her fiber spun into yarn and having items made from it.

People sh people shower her with pictures. a finished product and uh it's beautiful. It's beautiful stuff. So now tell me how you found uh Local Fiber the Local Fiber Collective and what how that came about. I started as a registered business in two thousand nine. I felt kind of isolated. I didn't know anybody else who was doing this sort of thing for probably it was almost ten years. And I was trying to figure out the business myself you know, there are there are dairy farmers and there are vegetable farmers all around us here. There's it's an agricultural community, but didn't know very many people who would primarily focused on fiber.

So I just had to kind of find my way as far as how I could make money on these animals and have them pay for their own hay. And it started with a small local craft shows. And I I just eventually got to the point where I was pretty darn good at it. And there was a grad student at Cornell who was interested in fiber sheds. Dana Havis was interviewing farmers and trying to find out how she could design a research project that would be a benefit to the fiber farmers in the region. So she called it local fiber and after talking with her and talking about some of the challenges that we had, she made it a membership organization and I joined.

So you were one of the very first members and how Did you how many members do you have right now? It's somewhere between uh twenty-five and thirty-five. So it's not huge. Um but i it's It's enough. The membership fees are low and uh we need to have uh volunteer hours. For the right So you've got twenty-five-thirty members across, is it seventeen counties all across central New York? Well, we're open to having members from all those counties, but realistically they're mostly in and around the Ithaca area. So are all of your members f actually fiber farmers?

Does everyone own animals? Yeah, we have makers and um And uh we our our mission is to um educate and encourage markets for people who are raising animals. locally for uh the fiber animals locally. So you can do that in a million different ways. You can you can buy fiber from a local fiber farmer. You can um raise the animals yourself you can be part of the the artistic community and use some of the fiber from local farmers. Uh there's a lot of different ways. The main activity that we have at this point is the pop-up the holiday pop-up and we require that anything that's sold in the holiday pop-up has some local fiber in it.

We don't specify how much, but the idea is just to get people to be aware of what you can do with local fibers, who's growing them, where to buy them, that sort of thing. Mm-hmm. So so take me from From goat to sweater, how does the what is that what does that chain look like for you from your fiber perspective? Sure. Uh I I when I when I go to a craft show I have people come up to the booth and they say, Did you do all of this? Did you do it all? And I and I say, Well, you know, where can I start counting? Because of course the animals are primarily they're born on the farm.

Occasionally I buy in a buck or something Um, but they're mostly born on the farm. So I'm there from the beginning and even before the beginning I'm trying to make sure the the dough has the right nutrition to produce a uh and and matching up the goats, you know, to make beautiful colors. So they they are born in the spring. Gore goats get shorn in the fall and in the spring. They get shorn twice a year. I collect that fiber. I either have to have a shearer come and help me with the task or I do it myself. depends on circumstances. Um and then uh the fiber gets uh we call it skirted so it's you're picking out the best parts and making sure the bad stuff doesn't go in the bag.

Then I combine colors into a bigger batch. Uh I usually take it to someone to be washed. I used to try and wash it myself, but it takes so long Oh and and I have a lot of fiber. I have probably five hundred pounds a year. So I in the past I have gone to the yarn mill and allowed the yarn mill to do the washing all the way through to f finished yarn, but I found that s Scouring part of the process was very expensive. What I found was someone who was gonna do a larger batch of washing would do it for a lower price. So I actually have been going to Canada to a scouring facility up there.

And it's a fraction of the cost of what the mini mills and some of the medium sized mills are charging for the washing. So that's a big part of the uh cost. the end cost. So that's the first thing is it gets washed. I then take it to a yarn mill. The yarn mill put it through the processing they'll pick it and card it and spin it and ply it and then put it on cones and give it back to me on cones. The cones are g can be anywhere from three pounds to five pounds depending on the weight of the yarn. And then once we have a yarn, then I can direct it to the knitters.

And um actually order the yarn based on what I'm going to have knit because the knitting companies only have so many machines and the machines are fairly specific as far as what kind of yarn they can handle They manufacture socks, hats, mittens, gloves, and then they ship me back the finished product in the natural color. So then I go through and dye them and then I label them and package them for the craft shows. And stand in a booth. for however many hours and try to educate and convince, motivate people to buy natural products. I I actually want to ask you about that because what you're putting into this whole process is a lot we're so used to fast fashion. these days, right?

And we're used to very inexpensive clothing that has a very short lifespan. And here are you you care about how your dough are fed so that their fiber good quality and is the right kind of color. I mean that's a very granular level of care and detail that most fashion just doesn't even begin to address at all. And so when people are going to your pop-up shop, for instance, your or your website and they're purchasing a pair of socks or a sweater or just the the fiber itself to make something of themselves, there's a whole lot more that they're paying for.

Oh, exactly. Beyond just that, you know, the fiber itself. Like they're paying for the the higher quality food for the for the animals. They're paying for the care that they receive. They're paying for, you know, the whole regenerative nature of what it is that you're doing, the whole, you know, intrinsic cycle of how you're moving things forward um on your farm and and in the region. How do you convey that to you know, the person who's like, Oh, I don't know, uh this is too much for a pair of socks Wow. You have to start building a relationship with the customers.

The first thing I do is I say this is all everything here is made with fiber I grew on my farm and I hand dye it all. Those are the first two points that I make. So the fact that I'm hand dyeing it all, you know, some people want to go in that direction and find out what I'm using for dyes. But a lot of people want to know, you are the farmer? And when I say yes, I am the farmer, okay. So what kind of animals are these? Oh, I didn't know that they I didn't know goat screw fiber. It's it's definitely a a relationship where I'm educating them about what my life is like and what I have for variables in raising the animals and producing this product.

Right Right. And I think that's a really interesting point to discuss. A lot of folks don't even know how to make how to make fiber, you know, or how fiber is made, if they even think about it at all. It's just You know, maybe you go and you you might buy some cloth at the store or some yarn at the store and nobody really thinks about how it's actually spun and and made and you're sort of working to bring back these skills of teaching spinning and teaching in general is c is a big part of your mission. So you have these workshops that you bring people into.

I guess you to some extent there it it's considered women's work to spin and weave and knit. I think it's really interesting because the the stories of men who are knitters or men who are weavers or men who are spinners, you know, those get a lot of press I think they are bolder about charging a fair price. Women tend to um undervalue their own work, and that is something that we've dealt with a fair amount at local fiber, trying to encourage women to we just we're just trying to help them come to a better understanding of what they're products are worth and you know what what the market will bear we had a farmer come in with hand spun and she was charging eight dollars and fifty cents and others were charging, you know, twenty-five. dollars.

So the customer would walk up to the rack of hand spun stuff, pull out the eight dollar and fifty cent stuff and say, What's wrong with this? And then when we spoke to the farmer, the farmer said, Well I don't need the money. She was retired from her full time job and she didn't need the money. And we said, Yeah, but that's not how this works. I mean, those of us who do need the money need you to charge a fair price. If you don't need the money, don't bring your stuff in. Right. Well, that's really interesting because that's that's counter to what what we're taught capitalism is supposed to be about, right?

You're supposed to just you're supposed to just sell things for a as much as you can. And not worry about anybody else, you know, or you're supposed to like crush your competition. And here the competition is actually saying, please You know, don't undercut us, you know. Yeah. It's more of a collective care kind of a model, right? We we don't n none of the farmers want to gouge anybody. And when I started selling yarn, my family looked at me askance and and said, Nobody's gonna pay twenty-five dollars a skein for yarn when they can go down to Walmart and get five skeins for $25.

And I said, I'm not competing with Walmart. My product is totally different from what Walmart's offering And that continues to this day and it just keeps the the gap keeps getting wider because as we get better and better at producing a quality consistent product from natural fibers and and as people begin to understand in in m on mass Well, how much better natural fibers are for keeping you warm, uh, for durability, for you know, there's a there's so many advantages to natural fibers. I joke I joke with people that I use food coloring to dye my socks, for example.

And so then I say to people, you know, y you could eat them. The food coloring is approved by the FDA. So they're natural. Um, but at the very least you can compost them when you're done. Right. Right. And most socks you can't do that with. You know, if they're if they're made from polyester and acrylic, you you wanna get those things out of your house. Right. So yeah, so there's a there's an idea among some economists that's growing uh now that an economy should serve humans and the environment as opposed to the other way around. Humans and the environment serving the economy.

And it sounds like local fiber is really that's very much what what local fiber is about. trying to get people to be involved in the holistic process of what's going on here. Every farmer has to deal with their version of that. And so the it seeps into the local fiber production. You know, several of our farmers have uh solar panels. Um one one farmer I know of is uh she has her her farm is off grid. Yeah, and y so that we're all very environmentally oriented because we have to be. You can't trash your farm and then expect to make money from it.

You can't ignore the health of the animals and expect to make money. And ultimately we're trying to do that this in a cyclical way so that we can make money and keep farming. You serve both farmers and makers And that's not always the same person. Like not all farmers are makers and not all makers are farmers. And sometimes they must have kind of competing interests. How do you how do you resolve that at local fiber or or is it something that's ever come up? Well well a a good example is that someone saw a scarf. that I made and had for sale and asked me how many skeins of yarn does it take to make this scarf.

So I told them I it took me two skein So then they turned around and went to the wall of yarn and bought the yarn to make the scarf. I think I actually make more money that way. But you know, there's There's so much value in making something yourself that clearly that was that was an important factor for them. I guess that's a type of competition that they wanna and they don't necessarily buy my yarn. They don't have to buy my yarn to make the same scarf that I made. And that's kind of what the workshops are designed to do is to get people into the craft and so then they're buying craft supplies, but they're also becoming an advocate for natural fiber and for uh crafting I have a small confession here.

Back in the middle of the pandemic shutdown when everybody was dreaming about things, me and I think maybe about half the country thought Maybe I'll g I'll m move to some farm and start an alpaca you know, start an alpaca farm. Right? This was like a bit it was it was a strangely Ubiquitous dream for a minute. And get a dog. And get a dog, right? We're just gonna like be out in the in the wilderness with our packets and our dogs. So So if I'm a new alpaca farmer, for instance, what is the benefit for me joining a collective like like Local Fiber?

Wow. If you're a new alpaca farmer, there's enormous benefit to finding other alpaca farmers to learn from. Having a mentor makes the learning curve a little less steep. And especially when if you want to raise alpacas or goats or sheep and you fall in love with their personalities and then they get sick. Yeah It's it's very painful. There's a lot of tears in the first couple of years because you're trying to figure things out. You don't necessarily know how to keep them Safe and healthy. Having a mentor, having somebody that you can call. When I sell a goat, uh you know, I tell them call me anytime And I've had people say, I don't understand what's going on here.

I can almost diagnose over the phone and then I can say, okay, I have some stuff. Meet me at you know, Wegmans and I'll and I'll give you the medicine. Those kinds of things are on the farming side. And just having other farmers to talk to about well, well now what do I do? I've got this fleece. Who am I gonna take it to? Well Certain mills do a certain kind of spinning. Some mills you have to wash the fiber first. Where am I going to get it washed? You know, all those connections you need to have to get to the end product. And then you've got the end product now what do we do?

One of the things I remember saying to one of our new members I don't know, five years ago was you need to wash these with a particular kind of non detergent soap so that they will soften. The fiber won't be so scratchy and then you'll sell more of them, you know, and it's also better for the fiber. All those kinds of things are pieces of information that we've picked up along the way. Very useful accumulated knowledge and and we're very happy to pass it on. So that's a big part of what the benefit is, is just the other farmers. You also get comfortable if you're if you're part of local fiber and you participate in the pop up at it uh during the holidays, you get comfortable talking to people about your stuff and about your animals and about farming.

And you're also gonna get informed about various requirements, filing requirements or state level fees that we have to pay and you know, all those kinds of things State taxes. You know, a lot of our farmers are are a little bit hesitant about the state taxes, the sales tax when they first come to local fiber. And we helped them figure that out. We we uh encourage Farmers to have a website. I mean it's just all the benefits that you get from being in a community. We're so fortunate here that you're here in the Ithaca area or central New York. If Somebody happens to be listening from outside of the central New York area and they are wanting to start a collective similarly, what kind of advice would you give them?

Wow, we would love to see that happen. We have talked about trying to have some kind of a workshop for people in the Rochester area who might want to get one going or Syracuse. Our our pop-up was the idea of Dana Havis and she approached a store that sold natural items. They sold natural bedding and then you know, herbs and oils and things like that. And she approached them because she thought it would be a good fit. But I think you would need to gather and try to get the community started before you try to start commercial venture like our pop up.

And we did that. We we were doing a lot of talking and trying to figure out what kind of an organization we wanted to be long before, probably two years, three years before we got the pop up to get some likes. And then we had an a fortuitous coincidence in that we had a what's called a uh BID business improvement district. We have a business improvement district in Ithaca and the downtown area I advocate for downtowns. My husband's work has been economic development in central business districts for forty five years or something and um we've always found that the heart of every community is in its downtown.

And so the best thing that you could do, I think, is to find a way to cite your venture, either your community evenings that you want to do or your commercial venture in downtown because that's really, you know, it might might be struggling, but that's still the heart of the community And if you put it in the middle of the community, you're gonna get more notice. It's it's easier for people to access. And you might get some financial support. We we definitely got that. We has there was a special program encouraging landlords to rent us a space for a couple of months. a vacant space and so it was a win-win.

Nowadays we are self-sufficient and we can approach a landlord and we have much more favorable terms than we than what we started out with. So it works out really well A lot of the places that we have cited our shop have gone to long-term rentals right afterwards. So I guess I would start with building the community first. finding the farmers and bringing them together for potlucks for discussions about, you know, what are the problems in common? What do we think would be the first step we could take to alleviate some particular concern? A lot of places it's washing the fiber.

Can we do a collective purchase of equipment? Can we write a grant for something? So do you have anyone who is just strictly a maker, maybe a rug weaver or uh someone who who just makes sweaters. We have one who is a felter and I don't believe she has animals, but she makes absolutely she has a felting studio and she makes absolutely gorgeous felted items. But your collective is open to the and is open to makers who don't own animals. Yeah. So if anyone wanted to join, that would be an interesting way to get in as well. Definitely it definitely.

Not everyone has the um ability to be a farmer or the personality to be a farmer. It's hard, hard work Three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I had to get up this morning, go out in that snow. I did not want to do it. And then I get up to the barn and I'm in my happy place. But yeah, it's not it's not for everyone. Farming is not for everyone But you can be a maker and you can bring a whole new dimension to your artwork by using locally grown, humanely raised fiber. What are some of the challenges that you face as an organization. When we started, there were a lot of people interested and keeping people interested is definitely one of the challenges.

There was a sharp drop-off pretty quickly. The other struggle that we had was trying to decide what kind of organization we were going to be. There are Arguments that can be made that we are a business development entity, but we incorporate it as a nonprofit. We have an education function and and then we have this pop-up to benefit local fibers, farmers. But there was definitely a struggle at the beginning over which which way we were gonna go and which of the types of business structures were the right one for us. We we ended up doing a 501c3 so that we could apply for grants.

We have done a couple of grants, but it's not a big part of our financial structure because we're doing well enough with the proceeds from the Papa. We we charge a commission to the farmers and that money helps us get through the rest of the year. Hopefully we can do some more um educational events. This year the the group is um gonna get the wool barn, new newly constructed wool barn at the State Fair. They're gonna be managing that. I'm not premature in saying that. They were supposed to sign a contract we met in February And they were supposed to sign a contract that month.

I and uh, you know, that there there are other things that we're hoping to do that are educational, but that was definitely one of the biggest struggles was whether we were gonna be a business organization or a or a nonprofit. And the other the other struggle that is ongoing is volunteers. I mean everybody's busy. And so when you need to get something done, it's especially if it's an ongoing volunteer need, it's tricky to get a commitment from people and to have them actually be present and follow through. The pop-up shop, the way the pop-up shop works is you are required to put 15 hours of time in behind the counter.

If you don't do that, you should not be able to sell. That's been the requirement from the beginning, is it people had to come and put some time in. And you know, occasionally we have a farmer who, for whatever reason, doesn't follow through on that. And that that really taxes all the other members unfairly because there's only so much we could show up for and, you know, it's the holidays. But that that's a challenge. I think it's a l it we have a little bit of a struggle to get people to keep their memberships updated. Uh our treasure is wonderful, but she doesn't like electronic processing.

So you know, uh we're a small organization so you do with the skills that people have and that's not one of Sarah's skills Right. That's always that's always the trick. Yeah. So that's what so you're open to to fiber farmers, fiber makers, anyone who is in any kind of a maker who might be interested in using natural fibers or using more natural fibers uh from your area or just finding out how things are going or or maybe starting their own collective. Thank you so very much for coming in, spending some time and telling us all about local fiber and your your beautiful goats.

I can't wait to see them. I hope I hope I I hope they show up at one of the uh craft fairs that we go to here Soon. And once again, that address is localfiber. org for anyone who's interested and laughinggoatfiber. com Is as Lisa's fire. Thanks for listening to the Ithaca Local Economy Lab. If you liked us and want to hear more, please be sure to share, rate, review, and subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. It's noisy in the podcast world, and we need you to help us find more listeners. You can read the show notes, get on our mailing list, and download your own free copy of Practical Resources for Healthcare Beyond Insurance at Ithacalocaleconomy Lab. com.

And if you know of a local business, nonprofit, or program that you'd like to hear on the show, please send them my way. The Ithaca Local Economy Lab is produced by Practically Real LLC. and brought to life by an amazing team including technical advisor Jake Gribschaw, Associate Producer Stacey Cornelius, content strategist Sonia Simone, and creative advisor Erin O'Shaughnessy. Yen Ospina is our artist, and the music is by Carsie Blanton. Until next time, take good care