A Thoughtful Thread yarns with: String Harvest

Hello! We hope you enjoyed our conversation with the wonderful Belinda Evans of Alchemy last week! 

Today marks week 4 of A Thoughtful Thread and we're thrilled to share our interview with the lovely sisters Cass Harris and Megan Harris of String Harvest, an Australian-based online store specialising in socially and environmentally responsible natural fibre craft supplies.

Discovering String Harvest on Instagram late last year was a great point in our weaving journeys: while we were making inroads with identifying and sourcing sustainable making materials, Cass and Megan opened our eyes to a broad range of plant-based fibres which can be incorporated into weaving, knitting, basketry and more. It was refreshing to find an online store that echoed our values and offered a point from which to select and experiment with an array of sustainable materials. We hope you enjoy finding out more about the story and ethos behind String Harvest as much as we have!

Who is the duo behind String Harvest?

We are sisters, born and raised in Temora, in rural NSW. Megan moved back there after study to work and basically build a farm. Cass lives in Melbourne. We both have toddlers. Since we are pretty close in age, we always tried to be different from each other growing up, but as adults we share pretty similar values - and hobbies. Last year, we really felt the need to create a meaningful business for ourselves… and String Harvest kind of came out of that.

Megan Harris [photo by String Havest]

String Harvest is all about socially and environmentally responsible natural craft materials – can you tell us more about your store?

If we were ever going to have a business, those values were always going to be at the core of it - there’s no other way. The premise is simple - to showcase a wide array of strings, yarns and other craft fibres made from natural materials. Plants are such an amazing, renewable resource! Following on from this is the need to promote those materials which are made ethically - this is as much about sourcing products that don't expose people to toxic chemicals during production as it is about fair wages and social empowerment. We haven't got this perfect yet but it’s really important to us to see that we do.

How did the idea to establish String Harvest come about?

Last year our Mum wanted to down-size her sustainable homewares store in the country. As much as we loved her business (Green Seeds Temora), we didn’t want to take over the store because translating brick and mortar into online retail is not as simple and easy as it sounds and we'd been researching it for a while. She sold fair trade hemp and coconut coir (among lots of other stuff) and we loved those fibres, knowing they had so much potential as viable craft materials. There had to be more like it, but where? How do you source these fibres? Why are they so hard to find? And why does anything fair trade or made of hemp have to be associated with hippies and web stores built on 90s technology? We liked the idea of all these amazing craft fibres produced from different plants that are indigenous to where they’re made and easily grown but that also provide for producers, artisans and spinners who create them in an ethical way. It had to be online and accessible. But it definitely had to be cool - aesthetically and functionally… and on the smallest of shoestring budgets!

Cass Harris [photo by String Harvest]

The term ‘sustainability’ means different things to different people. What does sustainability mean to you and how is this reflected in your business ethos and functioning?

Ah ha! As it happens, Megan’s Bachelor was in Resource & Environmental Science, her Masters was in Sustainable Agriculture… and I have a Science degree in Cultural Geography - so there’s a fairly complicated, intellectual answer to that! In short, it’s about adapting our consumption habits in a way that fits better with what people can produce in the places they inhabit with the least environmental and social degradation. I don’t think we’d quite made that connection until just now. Sustainability is a word overused and under-done. There’s definitely a mindfulness to the way we approach this from a retail perspective, to keep things simple and low impact resource-wise, and to do what we can within our means.

You opened in November 2014 – what kind of a response have you seen (and is there a demand / rising demand for these ethical materials)?
The response has been great! The resurgence in basket making and tapestry loom weaving has definitely been integral to our reception. We’ve had plenty of customers who’ve found us and said this is exactly the kind of store they’ve been waiting for - and the number of repeat customers in such a short time is a good indicator. The next stage though is appealing to the unconverted and those who probably don’t think too much about their craft consumption habits and their impact, more broadly. We see it as our job to create that demand, too - by making it look appealing. A kind of eco-marketing-by-stealth.

How have you found the process of sourcing sustainable materials? What do you look for when determining which products to stock? What makes the cut / what doesn’t?

We’ll be honest - it’s pretty damn hard! There are some amazing products in the world, but getting them here is an issue. And there are some products we think oh yes! Let’s! And then we have to step back and ask ourselves how we can justify that, and we simply can’t. Finding the right products from within Australia is also difficult, and soon enough we’ll need to venture abroad to get what we’re really looking for and to achieve it with real integrity. Australia has a thriving independent wool scene and we are very happy to see that happening but when it comes to other fibres, there’s not as much activity. If you’re a small scale organic Australian cotton producer, please, please get in touch with us if you exist! We are a small and isolated country when it comes to some markets; the wholesaler scene is somewhat limited, the retail scene is heavily duopolised (cough) and we aren’t interested in more of the same of that.

Many of your materials are plant-based – can you tell us more about this approach and the diversity of materials you supply?
There are so many crazy, beautiful, interesting fibres that can be made from plants, with little to no chemical processing. Many of the plants from which these fibres originate are grown in the areas that they are indigenous to: such as the coconut coir, which is made in Sri Lanka; raffia, from Madagascan palms; and the abaca fibre made from the Banana plant indigenous to the Philippines. Bast fibres such as jute, kenaf and hemp come from fast growing renewable crops and do not require chemical processing, and sisal and pineapple fique are harvested from parts of the plant without having to remove or kill it.

A number of your products, such as coconut coir, support Community Companies. What are Community Companies, and how does stocking and purchasing these products support such community initiatives?
The coconut coir is Fair Trade and produced by the Araliya Community Company in Sri Lanka, which was founded in 2004 as a means of providing income to a small group of mothers whose deaf and mute children attended this particular kindergarten. Ten years on, it’s an incorporated company with over 80 women who are all both shareholders and permanent part-time employees with guaranteed retirement pensions. We think this is incredibly transformative and a brilliant business model, which is well-supported by our Australian distributor, Import Ants. They work really closely with the women and have provided them with an interest-free loan to start developing a recently purchased block.

The abaca string from Fair Fibers Crafts is headed by the amazing Nicole Aparentado in the Philippines. She works closely with women abaca spinners in the remote and volcanic province of Camarines Sur, by the foot of Mount Mayon. They are paid a fair and liveable price (up to four times the going rate) because the price of the fibre has plummeted in recent years due to the number of middlemen and unsustainable marker brokering. On top of this, 10% of their profits are donated to the Cartwheel Foundation, delivering culturally sensitive education to indigenous students in remote, far flung areas in the mountains.

Complete the following sentences:

Megan’s favourite product to use is… jute! because… its so underrated! It's actually quite soft and easy to manipulate. My favourite thing to do with it is knit, but I also like using it to weave little vessels and more recently to macramé with.

Cass’ favourite product to use is… Habu’s cotton gima because… it’s more than a thread, and not quite a yarn - but it has this strength and versatility. I love using it to weave with raffia. So raffia is also my favourite.

Our three most popular products are… raffia, raffia, raffia (all kinds and colours); Habu A-174 cotton gima and white banana silk yarn.

One of the most unusual fibres we stock is… Habu fique (FQ1), made from pineapple plant leaves. The fibres are really fine and then its spun into a string, so it has this wonderful, delicate handspun texture and lustre - but it’s tough as nuts.

Best moment since launching String Harvest… has probably been not a single moment but really just connecting with so many creative, talented makers on instagram - the things people make really blow us away!

When we’re not String Harvesting you’ll find Megan…. tending to her veggie plot and chickens, living off-the-grid. Cassie is... usually toddler raising, crafting things and… secretly String Harvesting.

What advice do you have for people seeking to incorporate more sustainable and ethically sourced materials in to their making?

Experiment - a lot… ! We’re still not at the point where sustainable and ethically sourced materials are that easy to find - and the challenge with unfamiliar fibres is how to use them and what to do with them. We say 8 ply wool is too easy! We have all these weird and wonderful fibres and our customers say ‘these look amazing! But what can I do with them?’. And that is where our journey is as much about translating and adapting creative ideas and skills from more popular fibres onto other materials to produce something new.

What’s next for String Harvest?

Since we’re only a few months old, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. There are all the little things we need to implement to be true to our core values and really walk the talk as a sustainable and ethical business, from becoming more transparent about our products and demanding more information from our suppliers down to working on more sustainable packaging and postage materials. 

Bigger-picture wise, we’re aiming by the end of the year to be in a position to put a proportion of profits from all sales back into projects that promote environmentally and socially responsible trade within the textile and fibre industries we draw on. We’re not 100% on the form this is going to take, but it’s one of the big ‘why we do it’ factors. We feel there’s no point being in this kind of business if you can’t make that kind of real, tangible impact.

Oh yes, and that big sourcing trip to India/South America/Turkey…!


Thanks so much again to Cass and Megan for sharing their story with us! As customers of String Harvest, we've enjoyed prompt, personable and professional service, and it's been a whole heap of fun getting to know Cass and Megan better through this interview preparation process. Be sure to check out their store and their inspirational Instagram feed (@string_harvest)! 

Until next week...
Claire and Holly

* All photos by String Harvest *