Fiber Arts Subscriptions with USA Sourced Wool — Why Small Farm Fiber Matters
supporting the USA small farms and mills with my fiber arts subscriptions
Why I Source Fiber Differently — And What That Actually Means for Your Subscription
When I started spinning in 2014, I did what most new spinners do. I signed up for the popular subscription boxes. The ones everyone was talking about. They were beautiful — genuinely, the colorways were stunning — but something always felt a little off. The fiber was fine. Consistent. Generic. Month after month, the same base, the same feel, no real story behind where it came from or whose hands had touched it before mine.
I kept spinning. And as I started building Feral Scene, I started building something else too — real relationships with the people actually growing and processing fiber in this country. Small farms. Family mills. Operations where someone answers the phone and knows their flock by name.
Around 2018, I took over stewardship of a project called My Local Wool, originally founded by Ashley Martineau. The whole premise was simple and radical at the same time — connect spinners directly to local and regional fiber sources. Not bulk. Not imported. Not anonymous. It was one of the most meaningful projects I've been part of, and it taught me more about the American fiber industry than anything else could have.
Then covid hit. The local markets that My Local Wool was built around went quiet, and eventually online fiber commerce absorbed everything. The format became redundant. But the relationships didn't disappear — I kept them. The farms in Virginia, the mills in North Carolina, the small boutique producers scattered across the country that I'd spent years getting to know. I folded all of that into Feral Scene's subscriptions and kept going.
That's the foundation everything here is built on. When you subscribe, you're not getting fiber pulled from a bulk catalog. You're getting what I've curated from a sourcing network I've tended for nearly a decade — domestic, intentional, and as varied as the farms themselves.
That also shapes the format options. Most subscription boxes offer braids. Just braids. I offer braids, batts, and bundles that combine both — because spinners aren't all the same, and the fiber prep you reach for says something about how you spin and what you're making. A dyed braid and a natural batt are entirely different creative experiences, and you deserve access to both.
I'm not trying to be the biggest fiber subscription out there. I'm trying to be the most considered one — the one built by a small family business, supporting other small family businesses, in service of something I genuinely believe matters.
Fiber arts are ancient. The knowledge embedded in this craft — in the breeds, the preparations, the techniques — is irreplaceable. My larger passion has always been fine arts promotion in the broadest sense, and the fiber arts are a living part of that tradition. What I'm doing with Feral Scene is my contribution to bringing that heritage forward — making it accessible, making it beautiful, making it something a new generation of makers can find and fall in love with online, the same way I did.
Every subscription supports that. When you subscribe to Feral Scene, you're supporting the farms and mills I work with directly. You're helping keep rare breeds and regional fiber traditions visible. And you're part of building something I want to still be here — still growing, still teaching, still connecting makers to the source — for a long time to come.
That means more to me than I can adequately put into words. And I don't take it lightly.
If that resonates with you, I'd love to have you as a subscriber. Browse the current Feral Scene fiber subscriptions and find the one that fits how you spin.
