Papahoa Fibreworks

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Papahoa Fibreworks

Bringing locally grown fibre and natural colour to NZ's textile industry 🍃

12/07/2026

Sunday morning loom time

09/07/2026

Our linen fibre is available 🌱

With huge thanks to Alicia for her many many hours of hard mahi, breaking and endlessly combing, we can now offer Canterbury grown linen fibre for your art & spinning endeavours!

On our website you'll find:

• Hand processed long-line fibre from our 2024/25 season, grown organically at the The BHU Organic College

• Hand processed tow from the processing of our ling line fibre, cleaned and carded ready for spinning

• Commercially processed long line fibre, gifted to us to help raise funds for our processing machinery

Sales of this fibre will be going towards the build of a HiLo spinning machine so that we can offer you linen yarn in next years release 🌱

07/07/2026

Our July dye-lot colours are here ✨️
Each month, we bring you two colour options, created from plants, inspired by the whenua around us. This month is:
🍯MĀNUKA - a soft warming yellow inspired by our native bush honey
+
🧊 GLACIER GREEN - a rich green teal reminiscent of the incredible glacial waters we have here in Aotearoa
Send us your tired textiles, and we'll reinvigorate them with some plant-based colour 🌱 For all the details, head over to the website - link below:
https://www.papahoafibreworks.nz/store/products/monthly-dye-service

26/06/2026

Regenerative by design ♻️
The linear economy models of 'take-make-dispose' see their by-products as waste - a big problem that needs to go to landfill 👎
But when you design systems to work in reciprocity with the land, by-products are re-used, keeping the flow of energy in a continuous regenerative loop - a circular economy.
After extracting the colour from our dye plants, the exhausted matter can return to our soils by way of composting, feeding the plants for next seasons colour - a truly soil to soil system 🌱
With our dye operation growing in size and our composting currently limited, we're looking for some creative ways in which we can turn this organic by-product into something new ✨️
We've already had interest from someone exploring bio-leather, but maybe you have another idea? Aotearoa is full of resourceful and creative minds - please share, comment below, or send us a message with any ideas 💡

Help us give our exhausted dye plant matter a new life! 🌱

23/06/2026

Towards the end of last year, we started quietly working away on a research paper along with Genevieve Rae of The Micro Mill and Ngaio Cowell exploring regenerative textile production Papahoa Fibreworks as a design method.
After many months in the making, we were honoured to have our paper 'Contextualising soil to soil textile production in Aotearoa' accepted by the Design Research Society and had the opportunity to present it a couple of weeks ago (via zoom) at their symposium in Edinburgh.
So we are now officially the proud authors of a published paper(!) 🥳 It is available to read via the link in our bio.
Together, we can rebuild our relationship between people, plants, and place 🌱

04/06/2026

✨️ DARK SKY + BURNT ORANGE 🍊
June's dye-lots are here - hop on over to the website, weigh your garment, and choose the dye-lot colour that catches your eye. Post us your garment by the 17th of June and we'll revitalize it with some plant-based colour 🌱 link in bio x

27/05/2026

The last of this seasons seed has finally been harvested from the fields 🌱
The autumnal transition from plant, to flower, to seed is an incredibly beautiful one - from the flood of blue flax flowers through to a pink sea of indigo in bloom.
Gina will be spending the next few weeks processing the many different varieties we have, which we hope to have available in July - so you have plenty of time to plan your Spring garden 🌱
Sign up to our newsletter via the website if you want to keep up to date - link in bio 🔗
📸

24/05/2026

Our own natural dye journey has taught us how multi-faceted, and quite frankly, how extensive this field of study can be.
There have been centuries of exploration into processes used to create colour from the natural world, and we've heard from many of you that it can feel a bit overwhelming to know where to start.
So, for those of you interesting in dipping your toe into the world of natural dye, we've just added a handy resources page to the website - it has a glossary with some basic technical terms, along with beginner friendly recipes and valuable tips and tricks to get you started.
Less complication, more creativity, connection, and colour 🌼

14/05/2026

2026 Linen Harvest 🌱

This season's linen harvest is beginning to pile up in our wee storage shed as we slowly bring it home.

The straw has been laying in the field retting since being pulled from the soil by hand. It has been a fantastic season for this linen crop and we're pleased to say this is the first time in three years we've managed to harvest the lot!!

We could not have done it without the help of our amazing community. We planted this seed into gifted land, harvested it using gifted time and now its being stored in a gifted milking shed.

We're feeling so full of gratitude for the help we have received to get this far and we're so excited to start producing fibre!

We'll be releasing linen fibre for spinners and makers soon to help rase funds to build a hi-lo spinning machine in the very near future. Pop over to our website and sign up to our newsletter to be notified when this is live.

Aroha nui 🌱

03/05/2026

The May community dye-lots are here!
👋 MULBERRY + MUSTARD 💜💛
Send us your tired textiles for a new lease of life ✨️ a wee reminder that this can also include accessories, such as scarves too 🙌 Autumn is well under way, let's get cosy with some plant-powered colour 🌼
https://www.papahoafibreworks.nz/store/products/monthly-dye-service

Address

Christchurch

Website

https://www.papahoafibreworks.nz/

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