THANK YOU for the amazing inaugural year of Field to Frock 2024
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A huge thank you to everyone who helped make the inaugural year of the Field to Frock festival a notable success. Between presenters, volunteers, and the amazing models in the fashion show there were 40 people who worked together to bring this event to our community. Over the three days more than 450 people attended our events.
Wow.
We are thrilled to have met your substantial enthusiasm to be growing the community around flax to linen.
We're already thinking about next years Field to Frock festival...
Join us over the Summer Solstice: June 20, 21, 22 all events are free!
Come makers, artists, textile enthusiasts, agriculturalists, small farmers, local foodies, slow-fashionistas! Together we are weaving relationships with materials, makers, growers, and thinkers to encourage a richer modern human connection with textiles.
Midwest Linen Revival presents Field to Frock events in and around the Madison area to build community for the emerging flax fiber movement. Attend one event or all of them! We promise you'll leave with a greater appreciation for the connections between soil health and human health, traditional skills with future resilience, and individual crafting with community wellbeing. And learn some things about our connection past, present, and future with the beautiful flax plant.
A Hands-on Behind-the-Scenes tour featuring historic pieces of linen registration required Update: EVENT IS FULL!
Two Start Times: 2PM and 3PM, each tour will last approx. 60 minutes
Max capacity: 20 people per tour
Location: UW-Madison Center for Design & Material Culture
1300 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706
Parking Info here: https://cdmc.wisc.edu/about/location/
Registration required: 2:00 tour OR 3:00 tour Update: EVENT IS FULL!
Did you know that one of the world’s largest textile collections is on the UW-Madison campus?
The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, housed in the Center for Design and Material Culture at the School of Human Ecology at UW Madison, includes over 14,000 textile artifacts spanning 16 centuries and 108 countries. Started by a fiber enthusiast and beloved Wisconsin professor Helen Louise Allen, the remarkable research collection will be open for special Field to Frock tours on Friday, June 20th. This is a unique opportunity to peek inside the storage space and learn the inside story about a few linen pieces that will represent a range of cultures, time periods, and functions with cultural historian and textile specialist Sophie Pitman. Pre-registration recommended as space is limited.
A pioneer in her field, Professor Allen approached textile objects as cultural records through which human nature and history could be better understood. For this linen-focused, hands-on opportunity, Dr. Pitman will share stories from some of highlighted objects from the collection and invite relevant, timely conversation about what we can learn about how linen has been made, worn, valued, and cared for around the world, throughout history.
B Fun with Color and Dye in the Garden
Times: 12:00-4:00
Location: UW-Madison Allen Centennial Gardens
620 Babcock Drive, Madison, WI 53706
Parking Info: There are two-hour timed parking stalls (mobile pay “meters” that do not accept coins) on Babcock Drive, as well as a parking ramp (Lot 36) on Observatory Drive.
Come visit the garden and the plants growing there which lend their flowers and stems to make color in our textiles. Learn from Allen Centennial Garden's educators who will be doing demos dying linen, wool and cotton and preparing materials for use in their future workshops.
* Note there are no restrooms; dogs must be on leashes
C Flax Field Day and Hand processing Demonstration
Time: 10-12, stop by anytime
Presenters: Scott Johnson from the Low Tech Institute and Leslie Schoeder from Midwest Linen Revival
Informational Tabling with:
event sponsor - Wisconsin Farmers Union Dane County Chapter
fiscal sponsor - Fibershed Heartland
community collaborators - Textile Arts Center, UW-Madison Extension Emerging Crops Coalition, Madison Handwearvers Guild
Location: Troy Gardens
502 Troy Dr, Madison, WI 53704
Parking Info: Street parking available
Learn from experts on fiber flax about planting, harvesting, the critical stage of retting, and experience the hand worked process to clean and prepare long bast fibers for spinning. There is flax planted on site which can be visited with a walk through the property. Event sponsors and community partners (listed above) will be sharing information about the important work they are doing to create a network of regional textiles. The beautiful space of Troy Gardens has plenty of area to roam, bring the whole family to enjoy the morning outside at the gardens.
D Hands-on: Mending for Everyone
Time: 1-3PM
Presenter: Carolyn Lipke, Fibershed Heartland Volunteer, and Kathryn Prince Fibershed Heartland Board Member
Location: Aubergine
1226 Williamson St, Madison, WI 53703
Parking Info: Street parking available
Make a statement with your style, no sewing experience necessary! This hands-on, free event is
kid-friendly and open to everyone. We will offer the instruction, tools, and materials for remaking
older clothes into something fresh and fun. Bring your own clothing or try out some techniques
on our provided fabric. Instructors and fiber artists Kathryn Prince and Carolyn Lipke will share what they love about hand sewing and teach participants the skills to be part of the solution while dressing to impress
E Spinning Flax to Fiber
Time: 3-5PM
Presenters:
Bee Hahn at Babe’s Fiber Garden
Emily Nie with Madison’s Weaver’s Guild
Evie of JillianEve
Location: Aubergine
1226 Williamson St, Madison, WI 53703
Parking Info: Street parking available
Come see how to spin gold! These three spinners are all deep experts in the craft of turning the long lovely fibers of flax into yarn. Visitors can give spinning a whirl too!
F C̶o̶f̶f̶e̶e̶ ̶H̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶F̶l̶a̶x̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶F̶l̶a̶x̶ ̶M̶a̶'̶a̶m̶ Update: event cancelled
Reluctantly we've canceled this event! Stay in touch with MLR on Instagram, Facebook, or check the Events page on our website for future opportunities to connect outside of the Field to Frock festival.
G Happy Hour Flax-y Lecture-ish and Linen Fashion Show
Time: 4-6PM doors at 4:00, show at 4:30
Presenters: Leslie Schroeder of Midwest Linen Revival, with clothes modeled by the VO5 dancers and other community friends, MD'd by Yes Ma’am geniuses of Improv Comedy
Location: High Noon Saloon
701 E Washington Ave, Madison, WI 53703
Parking Lot on site
Not just for mummies – linen is comfy stuff that will return to the soil without a trace when we are all dead and gone. Go home with a bit more knowledge about how humans have been growing their own clothes since the beginning of time, and the stories we tell ourselves – from fairy tales to Wisconsin history to the current flax-to-linen revival – from the founder of Midwest Linen Revival, Leslie Schroeder. Then you’ll get to see real Madison superstars strut on stage in style that makes you smile. These ladies from the Yes Ma’am Improv, VO5 dancers and friends will show off slow fashion, highlighting the versatility of linen for different looks and bodies while celebrating the ancient fabric that is poised to make a comeback on midwestern farms near you.
Thanks to support from local business Still Goods and Good Style Shop
H The Nettle Dress, a film from textile artist Allen Brown registration required Update: EVENT IS FULL!
Cost: Free
Time: 7PM
Location: Art and Literature Laboratory
111. S. Livingston St. Suite 100, Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Parking Lot on site
Registration required: click here to reserve your ticket Update: EVENT IS FULL!
A modern-day fairytale, this 68 minute independent film follows textile artist Allan Brown’s seven-year journey to make a dress by hand from locally foraged stinging nettles. Like flax, the plant that linen is from, nettles are a long-bast fiber. The film is called “a hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft.” Winner of multiple film festival audience awards and accolades, this is the Madison premier!
We are grateful to our Fiscal Sponsor and Funders!
Fibershed Heartland
Fiscal Sponsor
Grant Supporter
Grant Supporter
Grant Supporter
We are grateful for wonderful community partners and venues:
Art and Lit Lab, Babe's Fiber Garden, Creative Vixen Design, Good Style Shop, High Noon Saloon, JillianEve, Low Tech Institute, Madison's Weaver's Guild, StillGoods, Textile Arts Center, Troy Gardens, UW-Madison Allen Centennial Gardens, UW-Madison Center for Design & Material Culture, VO5, Yes Ma'am improv lab
Field to Frock has been curated and produced by:
Jessica Becker
Jessica Becker
Leslie Schroeder
Leslie Schroeder
Jessica is a mother to two teenage daughters, a writer, a photographer, and a wanderer. She wakes up early to practice yoga, bikes almost everywhere, enjoys cooking with her family, and is endlessly inspired by the beautiful world. She is the director of communications for Wisconsin Humanities, has a background in museums and education, and puts her energy into community projects that help us imagine a future in which we value our histories and evolve with resiliency and creativity. She is a textile enthusiast with a worldview. Read her article, “Smitten with Linen: Wisconsin’s Flax Fiber Revival,” in Wisconsin People and Ideas magazine and find ideas to liberate your spirit and light up your brain on Wanderlife.
Leslie's background is a blend of practical skills, community engagement, and a deep connection to nature.
She enjoyed fourteen years as a stay-at-home homeschooling parent of two which provided her the flexibility of time to deepen into the contemporary fiber crafts of sewing, knitting, and learning to weave on a floor loom, while also exploring traditional textile skills of twining wild cordage and hand tanning buckskins. Finding continuity from all that is ancient and modern in fiber flax, Leslie became smitten with linen.
Drawing it all together is an inspiration that there is something sacred in mending our relationship with our clothes.
Founder of Midwest Linen Revival, Leslie has been enthusiastically working to bring all that she has in passion and organizing skill into reviving a fiber-flax industry in The Midwest.
She sleeps outside whenever she can.
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