Foxfibre: The Yarn That Almost Saved The World
Okay. So I spent over a hundred dollars on this yarn because I heard it was magic, and illegal, and it changes colors when you cook it? And the messed up thing is that it turns out that I didn’t just buy some magic beans — this yarn is made from one of the most remarkable fibers on the planet.
It’s the result of 44 years of careful cotton breeding. Only one spinning mill in the world purchases it. It has a carbon footprint four times smaller than any dyed cotton and helped shape the international standards for organic textile fiber. It’s grown by one woman, on one farm, and has the power to turn the entire textile industry on its head and make huge strides in saving our planet— which is why it was given an award by the United Nations in 1993.
And it’s why the stubborn genius behind it has been frozen out of institutional support — and why she refuses to give up. This is, in part, the story of late-stage capitalism, and how a dying textile industry pivoted from saving the planet to destroying it in order to save their bottom line.
But mostly, this is Foxfibre, a naturally-colored cotton grown by legendary inventor Sally Fox. And it’s also good effing yarn. Oh yeah, it really does change colors when you boil it? But we’ll get to that.
Like any legend, accounts conflict when it comes to the reasons that Sally decided early in her fiber journey she wasn’t going to go anywhere NEAR dyes in her own work. In an interview with Vogue, she recounted a story of when she was studying at Cal Poly, and teaching a hand spinning course to make ends meet. She said that through that course, she met a woman whose daughter died from heavy metal poisoning after exposure to the chemicals used to tie-dye. And an article from fibershed.org states that she became interested in colored cottons after hearing about a high school crafts teacher who used a bunch of synthetic dyes in her work and suffered brain damage from the chemicals that seeped into her skin. Maybe it’s the same story, maybe they’re two different stories, but it’s no secret that synthetic dyes are terrible for the environment— and for us, at least when they seep into our drinking water and our skin. Sally learned that many of the same companies that made these dyes also made pesticides, and since she was an etymologist, she decided she was going to devote her life to working with farms to reduce their dependency on pesticides. Save the bugs!
It was on one of these farms that she ran into brown cotton for the first time. This colored cotton was more pest-resistent, so the USDA was basically GIVING it away to cotton breeders in the hopes they’d be able to get the pest-resistent qualities into white cotton. Sally thought this was about the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, and as a woman in her twenties, immediately pitched to the cotton breeder an audacious plan to make a market for this colored cotton that nobody wanted. And by the way? It turns out that it’s the tannins in colored cotton that make it more resistant to pests and mold, so while I’m no cotton breeder, it seems like getting the benefits of tannins into tannin-free cotton would have been… challenging.)
The main issue with the brown cotton from a commercial standpoint— aside from the color— was that it had an incredibly short staple length. We’ve talked about staple length a little in the past, but basically the length of the raw fiber itself determines how strong it is, how likely it is to pill, and the fiber’s overall quality. And the fiber length of this Acadian Brown Cotton… well, it sucked.
So Sally started breeding it with Pima cotton (which we know and love) and Sea Island cotton, which is the absolute cashmere of cotton and which I may do an entirely different video on at some point if I can get my hands on some sea island yarn. Anyway. As the staple length grew on Sally’s cotton, so did her business— Natural Colors was a $10M business in the early 90s. But she wasn’t JUST bringing in the dollars, she was also making serious CHANGE.
See, at this point any conversation about “organic” fiber… well, it was almost non-existent until Sally got involved, and even then the textile industry wanted to focus the “organic” label on how the cotton was dyed and treated, not how it was grown. The farm that she leased in the late 80s and early 90s (and eventually purchased) was one of the very first certified organic farms in California, period. She started small and through experimentation, pioneered how to farm organic cotton at scale— and helped develop the international standard for organically-grown textiles in 1993.
All of this was happening in spite of WILD pushback from her cotton growing peers— her cotton got banned from cultivation in Southern California because farmers who didn’t want to compete with truly organic cotton that didn’t need to be dyed claimed they thought crosswinds could lead seeds from her farms to contaminate their white cotton fields. And then it got quarantined in Arizona for the same reason.
But Sally kept at it, and she kept winning. It’s impossible to overstate Sally’s reach in the early 90s— I think I had a Colorganic t-shirt in middle school! She was doing business with companies like L.L Bean and Land’s End. Levi’s even did a limited edition run of natural 550s using foxfibre! Her cotton was going down runways in Armani shows.
And in 1996, it all came crashing down.
The globalization of the textile industry meant that big companies that once sought competitive advantage by toting their made-in-America bonefides, attention to craftsmanship and care for the planet realized it’d be a hell of a lot simpler to gain competitive advantage by undercutting their competitors dramatically on cost while increasing their margins. Sally never got over the betrayal of companies that had spoken so eloquently about their commitments to workers and the environment abandoning their suppliers in the west for sweatshops in countries with little to no environmental guidelines. And once a couple of the big guys dropped their prices, everyone else had to follow suit.
I know what you’re thinking— SURELY there’s a market for ethically made, environmentally responsible clothing! People would pay more to feel better. Oh, my sweet summer child, I thought the same thing once, but then Derek Guy of the menswear blog Die, Workwear! And social media fame as “Menswear Guy” schooled me. (Thanks for helping me out with this video, Derek!) When American Apparel was purchased by Canadian activewear and t-shirt giant Gildan, a lot of fans of the brand were concerned about the USP of American-made, ethical clothing going by the globalization wayside. And those concerns were valid: Gildan only bought the IP, not the factories in California, which closed. But due to consumer outcry, they floated a test balloon— a capsule collection of American Apparel staples made in the USA, each item identical to what they called a “globally made” counterpart that cost 20%-ish less. It failed. Miserably. Even a brand called American Apparel that was entirely built on the idea of preserving and reviving American textile manufacture at living wages couldn’t make it happen. What consumers say and how they spend? Entirely different things. In fact, a 2017 Reuters poll found that 70% of Americans believe it is “Important” or “Very Important” to buy products made in the United States, but were less willing to put their money where their mouth is. 37% said they would not pay any sort of premium for American-made goods; 26% said they would only pay up to 5 percent more, and 21% said they would pay no more than 10% more than globally-sourced goods— when the cost to manufacture something in a country with stronger labor protection and environmental laws is substantially more than that. And then when you bring in the cost of importing any raw goods and new tariffs— I digress.
Where were we? Right. 1998.
By ‘98, Sally had declared bankruptcy and was living in a travel trailer on her farm. Her farm and her seeds were all she had. Sally’s spent the last quarter-century clawing her way back, continuing to grow the cotton that could have been a seismic shift in the textile industry’s climate impact— but now it’s for hobbyist textile makers and occasional limited-run items for brands like Wonderlooper and Naked & Famous. She still wants to save the world by changing it, but at this point her dreams are more modest: being able to afford an employee to become her protege so that the incredibly important work she’s doing doesn’t die with her. She believes strongly that with more time and money, it’s possible to grow cotton in all colors of the rainbow— but brown and green have been her life’s work thus far, and now that she’s in her 70s, she’s keenly aware of the need to pass the baton.
And since I can’t give up everything, move to California and become a cotton farmer— and believe me, don’t think I didn’t consider it — Sally’s farm Viriditas is our first reverse sponsor. By that I mean, every month part of the YouTube channel’s Patreon earnings will be donated to a different charitable cause. There’s so much bad in the world right now, and nothing feels better than doing good together as a community, so every month the patrons and I are going to decide what we’re supporting together. If that sounds like fun, come join us! We also do a video call every month and I upload a Patreon-exclusive video too. Anyway! Let’s get back to Foxfibre.
Okay, we’re gonna get real technical for juuuust a minute but the TLDR is that the numbers say Foxfibre is super strong and soft, which are two qualities that rarely go together. The Acadia Brown Cotton that Sally Fox initially came across had a staple length of .75 inches, which was substantially shorter than the required minimum of .9 inches for commercial processing. For reference, Pima and Egyptian cotton staple lengths can get up to almost 1.5 inches, and some Sea Island cotton can almost hit a 2 inch staple length! But the super-luxury cotton you’re thinking of for hotel bed linens? Probably somewhere between 1 1/4 and 1 3/8.
Through decades of development, Sally’s put up some impressive numbers. The brown has a staple length ranging from .95 to 1.1 inches, the palo verde green variety has a staple length of .95 inches, and her newest sea green variety (which is a cross with sea island cotton) has a staple length of 1.2 inches. Again, staple length is what determines the lifespan of a textile— how prone it is to pilling or breaking, as well as affecting its softness and strength.
SPEAKING OF SOFTNESS. Normally we measure textile softness in micron count for synthetics and wool, which is basically the diameter of the fiber. For cotton it’s a little different and measured in the similar-sounding micronaire, which measures how easily air flows through the cotton. It’s not the same thing, but both units of measurement point at the overall fineness of the fiber, which is a significant contributor to its softness.And like with microns, the lower the micronaire count, the finer and softer the fiber. All of that to say: most commercial cottons range between 4 to 5.5 micronaires, with our gold standard Pima cotton coming in between 3.7 and 4.2. Sally’s foxfibre cotton? 3-4 micronaires for the brown shades, and 2-3 micronaires for the green. That’s some fine cotton, friends.
What you get when you combine these numbers is a fiber that will last an incredibly long time while having that soft, drapey feel you get from less durable cottons. All of that is cool, I guess, but I have to tell you about the thing that made me black out with excitement and when I came to I discovered I’d ordered an entire kilo of worsted-weight cotton, despite notoriously hating to knit with cotton. And I’m feeling myself getting overly excited again just thinking about it. Ready?
IT CHANGES COLOR WHEN YOU BOIL IT.
Okay look. Like I said earlier, it’s the tannins in the cotton that give the fiber its color, right? Specifically, for the brown cotton, there are water soluble and water insoluble tannins inside and outside of the fiber and the fiber itself has a wax coating on its surface that prevents the cotton seed from accidentally sprouting inside the cotton ball. (Remember how I said that this cotton was also mold resistant?) ANYway. You boil the fiber for 20-40 minutes with something alkaline— Sally says baking soda and washing soda both work, but washing soda tends to clump up. Boiling melts the wax and allows the fiber to re-absorb the water soluble tannins while the heat also sets the water insoluble tannins.
The green colors are entirely different and blow my mind. I’ll just quote Sally directly here: “The green color is composed of waxes classified as suberins. They are laid between each of the 20-35 layers of cellulose within the cotton fiber. They remain fascinating to me after all these decades of working with them. The changes in color are remarkable. And malleable; as they react to acidic liquids by turning yellow and basic liquids by turning grey/green. But the color changes are reversible and not permanent. This is why, however, one must be sure that any boiling of these cottons is in water that is basic, not acidic. Acids degrade all cellulosic fibers anyway. Bases strengthen them. It is why they mercerize cotton to give it additional strength. Which is the opposite of the fibers composed of proteins such as wool, cashmere, alpaca, and silk. The longer the yarn simmers, the darker the color will become. Up until about 40 minutes. Then it seems to be finished.”
I am desperate to get my hands on some of the green yarn when it’s back in stock, but you can see here that I’ve knit a swatch of my coyote brown yarn and simmered it with baking soda for about 40 minutes. The difference in color really is remarkable! Sally says the color will also darken naturally and slowly over the course of many washings, and as someone who has always loved old things the idea of knitting an heirloom shirt or sweater that almost patinas over time is just so cool to me.
So I knit this swatch on 5mm needles since the yarn was labeled as a worsted weight, and initially the fabric felt looser than I’d normally like. 4 or 4.5 might have been better, so maybe it’s more like a light worsted? The knitting experience was interesting. The yarn felt a little stiff in my hand, I could definitely feel the waxiness that Sally was talking about. Honestly, it felt sort of like knitting with a linen blend, but not nearly as annoying as actual linen. I feel like the fabric has good drape, but honestly I’m just so excited to see what it will look like once the boiling is done.
I really love this yarn and I’m excited to figure out what I’d like to knit with a worsted-weight cotton. Right now I’m eyeing the Spring League sleeveless hoodie by Alexandra Tavel; it seems like a great shoulder-season staple and I love the idea of a sleeveless hoodie. Once I get my hands on some of the green foxfibre yarn I’d love to do something striped, like this free henley: Driftwood by Isabell Kraemer. And since it’s cotton and begging to be washed, I think foxfibre would be an incredible choice for some heirloom baby knits: this Kai cable sweater by Louisa Harding is adorable, and the soft quality of the cotton would be so gentle on baby skin.
I know I’ve got a lot of crocheters out there, and while I have VERY RECENTLY proven I know nothing about crochet I wanted to look at some patterns that would be great with this yarn. I LOVE the look of this Rose Dust sweater by Emilia Johansson, and you could do it with or without stripes! And this Summer Diamonds Toddler Dress by ChiWei Ranck is so cute it makes me wish I had a baby and the ability to crochet— two desires that are VERY out of character for me!
I know this was a different kind of video than my usual fare, but many of you have asked for me to do more deep dives on the kinds of fibers that get me excited— and man, does Foxfibre excite me. Once again, deep thanks to Michael Kristy for introducing me to this incredible fiber, Derek Guy for helping me contextualize the downfall of American textile manufacturing, and Sally Fox for devoting her life to making the world a better place— I hope we’re worthy of it someday. And I hope you’re having a great day, and I hope tomorrow is even better than today was, and I’m looking forward to talking to you again real soon. Thanks! Bye.
