Press Spotlight – Golden State Linen — Flax and Linen for Northern California

Bioregional Resilience Through Bast Fibres

The Quest for Local Linen: Chico Flax

Harvested and processed from the hardy yet temperamental flax plant, linen yarn has long been a treasure to knitters with a taste for fashionable, summer-friendly knits. Yet the more miles a yarn travels to reach our needles, the less earth-friendly it becomes. In the United States, there is a notable lack of domestically produced linen yarns. Most linen yarns available at your local yarn shop are imported from Italy or China. Fortunately, there are fiber producers who are solving the lack of local linen yarn. Expert weaver Sandy Fisher and her partner, Durl Van Alstyne, are at the heart of Chico Flax, an organization located in Chico, California, that seeks to bring sustainably produced linen products to North America and beyond.\

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Slow Fibres

Fibershed is building regenerative textile practices from Northern California to Sri Lanka. What are the obstacles to taking a local system global?

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2023 Spring Harvest is coming Saturday, April 29

Chico Flax: hosting their yearly harvest, the first step in making linen for truly local clothing and textiles on Saturday, April 29 at 3239 Rodeo Avenue from 10am-3pm. Lunch, and comfortable gardening clothes recommended.

Details to learn how to grow your own clothes on the Chico Flax Facebook page, Instagram @chicoflaxtolinen and at chicoflax.com.

This years crop was planted on September 24, 2022. Warm weather coming the flax has been growing tall. Our Spring rains have been an extra bonus. We see out in the fields a great crop of linen this year.

Valene L. Smith Museum of Anthropology

Current Exhibitions

Deeply Rooted: How Soil Connects Us

Opening date: January 26, 2023, 4:00 p.m.

Chico Enterprose-Record: Is flax the future? Chico weaver hopes so

April 1, 2022 CHICO — This flax is the good stuff.

Local weaver and Chico Flax co-founder Sandy Fisher has been accepted into the Smithsonian Craft Show taking place April 20 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. for her woven crafts using flax linen, a material that she has been experimenting with since 2012.

The Good Dirt With Mary & Emma of Lady Farmer

The wonderful Mary & Emma of Lady Farmer invited us to join their podcast, The Good Dirt, this week to discuss how garments made from flax fibers will create opportunities for employment and for meaningful craft. Read the original post here, or follow along below –

Growing flax and processing it into linen is one of the oldest methods of clothing manufacturing on the planet. Sandy Fisher and Durl Van Alstyne have prided themselves in reviving this old craft here in the United States through their company, The Chico Flax Project. Through their work, they are bringing a new industry and social enterprise for fiber production of flax to Northern California in collaboration with local community members, farmers, artisans, and institutions.

For Sandy, weaving has always been an important part of her life—beginning as a young child when she learned how to knit. In 2012, a phone call during the Bangladesh fires inspired her to grow flax on her plot to use for weaving clothes. Durl is equally drawn to using natural fibers for clothing, his background coming from teaching at public schools for the past 35 years. Now, he works alongside his wife as a regenerative agricultural flax farmer.

In this week’s episode, we will discuss how garments made from flax fibers will create opportunities for employment and for meaningful craft, the process of designing clothes from natural fibers, and how they began The Chico Flax Project. Interested in learning more about Sandy’s and Durl’s story? Join us on this week’s episode to find out more.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, Simplecast, Podtail, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Topics Covered:

Weaving with flax seeds
Process of designing clothes from natural fibers
Impact of Covid-19 on agriculture
Increasing the market of domestically grown linen

Resources Mentioned:

Action News Now

Local flax farm experiences business success despite coronavirus downturn

Ecotopia KZFR

On this program we learned about local fiber systems—how to grow, process, weave, and produce locally grown fabric, while at the same time sequestering carbon dioxide and building a local economy. Sandy Fisher is the creator of Chico Flax, as well as a farmer and weaver and creative genius. Her partner is Durl Van Alstyne, who has become a central figure in Chico Flax. They spoke with us about the mission of their project, their nine-year experience with flax and fabric, and their plans for the future.