The Nettle Dress has been a word of mouth sensation in the UK since its release. It played to packed houses across the country. They partnered with sustainable fashion and craft festivals, ran panels and workshops with local makers, and shared the film with children from elementary school to college.
And now, I wanted to bring it to the Pacific Northwest where we are rich in stinging nettles and eager hands. I have secured the rights to show the film 3 times this August so don’t miss out! Space is limited. Registration is below…
Consider attending a Field to Fiber: A Nettle Textile workshop to get the full nettle experience - Aug 25th, Aug 27th or Aug 29th. :)
From Spin Off Magazine: The Nettle Dress: A Tale of Love and Healing
Follow a seven-year labor of love as one man, Allen Brown, spun and wove his way through years of tragedy and loss, magic and healing—all documented in an enchanting film.
Once upon a time (as all good stories begin), I was walking along the headlands at Land’s End in southern England. The hedgerows were rich with hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, holly, and a lanky, leafy, weedy-looking plant that looked, I thought, just like stinging nettle. Just like in my backyard at home! I heedlessly grabbed a handful, and sure enough—stinging nettle. The more I walked along, nursing my poor hand, the more nettle I saw in the understory. It had sprung up everywhere in the fertile, moist soil.
It’s a wonderful weed, really, rich in nutrients, effective for a wide range of maladies, delicious in soups, stews, salads, wherever you might use spinach, once you soak off or strip off the vicious little spines that inject you with histamines, formic acid, and other irritants.
But best of all, most magical of all, is the silky, spinnable fiber hidden in its long, rank stems. Humans have been retting out these fibers and fashioning them into cloth for at least three thousand years. It’s the stuff of fairy tales (remember the story of the 11 brothers in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Wild Swans”?) but also the stuff of peasants’ work clothes. For millennia in some communities, humans gathered, soaked, retted, hackled, combed, spun, and wove this ubiquitous weed into the fabric of their everyday lives—at least, until cotton came along. The spinning was especially time intensive. Imagine producing four or five thousand yards of nettle yarn on a drop spindle for a single shirt.
The Healing Power of Slow Craft
There’s more magic than just the fiber, though. Nowadays, making our own nettle cloth isn’t a life necessity. In practice, it can be a meditation on nature’s bounty, on human ingenuity, on spiritual values. It can be a reflection on the hidden beauty to be found beneath thorns.
No one knows this better than Allan Brown of Brighton, England, who spent seven years immersed in the creation of a nettle dress. He says, “Making clothing this way is slow and gentle. It means returning to the same places and doing the same things over and over. The repetitiveness of so many of the tasks that go into creating cloth feels like a deepening rather than drudgery. It’s as if the cloth is ensouled by intention. Clothing that is being made this way, specifically for you, by people that know and love you, from fibers that are to be found in your own landscape, is the way clothing has been made for most of our history. We were collectively wearing the dreams, stories, joys, and suffering of the people that made up our community.”
Allan’s journey into “hedgerow couture” has been documented in an enchanting film by his colleague Dylan Howitt. Allan spun and wove his way through years of “tragedy, magic, and love” as his wife died, his daughters grew up, and he evolved a simpler, more sustainable life. The film, simply titled The Nettle Dress, will feed your soul.
Special sliding-scale pricing available for this showing…please select what makes the most sense for your life at this time. I try to respect the seasonality of all things including in ourselves and that means sometimes life feels abundant and in other times it doesn’t. I want to share this journey and celebration of nettles with you regardless of the season you are currently in. With love - Erin
Event registration is NON-REFUNDABLE. However, if you want to sell or give your seat to a friend, I’m happy to welcome someone else in your place.
BYOB and snacks if you want to make it a night out! Bring friends. :)
This event will be held at the Field and Forest Crafts classroom at 1608 NE 179th St in Shoreline, WA.