Canberra Spinners and Weavers president Necia Agnew with indigo dyed cotton and wool dyed with pomegranate and madder. Photo: Necia Agnew.
St John’s wort can be found all over Canberra – to the point “it’s technically a weed”.
But not to Necia Agnew.
Necia is the president of the Canberra Spinners and Weavers, a group that traces its origins to local women who got together in 1965 to sew and create fabrics together.
“You can gather St John’s wort anywhere around Canberra and when you take the flowers and boil them up, it makes a dye in a range of colours like brown, pink, red, maroon, yellow and green,” she says.
“You can take a fibre like wool, or even some cotton or linen cloth … and pop it in a pot of the dye for about an hour.”
St John’s wort is considered a weed. Photo: Nature Mapr.
Canberra Spinners and Weavers, based at the Chifley Health and Wellbeing Hub, is among five groups to have won a share of ACT Government funding in this year’s round of Community Garden Grants.
Over the past 11 years, these grants have provided $470,000 to 99 projects across the city, said to provide “hundreds of Canberrans with the opportunity to learn, share and connect at their local community garden”.
This year’s $40,000 was split between the Rotary Club of Canberra Sundowners and the Northside Community Service to improve existing gardens, the Canberra Seed Savers Cooperative to create a seed garden and promote food production in local communities and the Forest School P&C for an Indigenous sanctuary garden.
Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water Minister Suzanne Orr said community gardens have a special place in the urban fabric of Canberra.
“Some of the many benefits these gardens bring to communities include providing a place to grow fresh and healthy food, improving wellbeing through social connection and helping us all to understand the importance of sustainable living and food security,” she said.
Canberra Spinners and Weavers received $8200 to establish a garden at its Chifley headquarters to grow plants for producing natural dyes and fibres, which will then be used in community workshops so others can learn the art.
“There are several places online in Australia where you can buy a lot of the fibres from, but we want to be able to grow then locally,” Necia says.
“Instead of me going out into public places and harvesting grasses, it’d be good to be able to do it at our rooms.”
Canberra Spinners and Weavers runs regular workshops, including for this rigid heddle weaving technique. Photo: Canberra Spinners and Weavers, Facebook.
Some materials will still need to be imported from interstate, such as those used in traditional Indigenous basket weaving, but the group hopes to be able to easily grow various eucalypt trees, native grasses like Lamandra and New Zealand flax.
Others will be grown for their dyes, like St John’s wort, true indigo, marigolds, pomegranates, madder, flowers, and yes, a few weeds that actually turn out pretty colours.
“The idea is we’ll use the funding to landscape the site, build some elevated beds and then with volunteers, call out for all these different sorts of plants,” Necia says.
The money comes at the perfect time. Canberra Spinners and Weavers is celebrating its 60th anniversary next year and there’ll be a series of events, including a community rug-making project, a couple of exhibitions of members’ craft – including one at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre – and finally a celebratory members’ lunch.
Every year, the Australian National University’s School of Art and Design hosts an exhibition of students’ work and with the support of one of the lecturers, Dr Rebecca Mayo, Canberra Spinners and Weavers choose three winners to undergo a textile scholarship.
One of this year’s recipients, aged in her early 20s, has gone on to become a group member and “quite involved in our activities”.
“There’s been a bit of a revival in traditional fibre crafts and that’s what we’ve been trying to build,” Necia says.
“We’ve already got a little seed and fibre garden going at the ANU and it’s trying to get some sort of relationship going with the students, so there are two sides to this project. We’re going to be growing the flax and and then teaching students how to spin that fibre once it’s treated, because there’s a whole process to turn it into a piece of cloth.”
ANU’s Dr Rebecca Mayo examining naturally dyed fabrics with a young flax farmer in Sweden. Photo: Dr Rebecca Mayo.
Work will get under way on the garden in the first week of December, with the aim to have everything in the ground by the end of the year.
“Within six months, hopefully something will be happening,” Necia says.
The garden will be open to the public and Necia hopes other tenants from the buildings – or passers-by from the Chifley Shops – will get involved too.
“It’d be lovely to get community involvement in using and maintaining the garden.”
Follow Canberra Spinners and Weavers on Facebook or Instagram for more information.
