Director

Danielle Soucie is a fibre artist and the founder of Earthborn Textiles, where she raises alpacas, grows dye plants, and creates handspun, naturally dyed, and handwoven garments from their fleece. Her personal practice is rooted in material literacy and transformation, working closely with fibre from raw form through processing, spinning, dyeing, and weaving. Through these processes she explores the full lifecycle of materials and the relationships between land, labour, and craft.

Danielle now serves as Director of the West Kootenay Fibreshed, where she works to build the relationships, programs, and infrastructure needed to support a resilient bioregional fibre system. Her work connects fibre producers, processors, artisans, and community members through education, collaborative initiatives, and place-based programming rooted in land stewardship.

She often says that relationships are the mycelium of our forest, an interconnected web that fosters resilience and regeneration across both communities and landscapes. Guided by this perspective, Danielle focuses on building networks of trust and reciprocity that strengthen local fibre economies and the ecosystems they depend on.

A community organizer at heart, Danielle is deeply interested in collaborative decision-making, decolonial approaches to governance, and making organizational structures more transparent and accessible. She brings both creative vision and practical systems thinking to her work, helping grow regenerative local economies and community-driven leadership in the region.

Facilitator

Stefania is a fibre artist and educator who guides others through the rich, hands on journey of textiles. She began knitting at age seven, learning from her grandmother, and soon added sewing, crochet to her repertoire. In her twenties, discovering the drop spindle opened the door to spinning, weaving, dyeing, and, more recently, quilting. Skills she now shares with curiosity and care.

As a therapist and artist, Stefania brings a trauma informed and holistic lens to her teaching. She is deeply engaged in exploring how fibre arts can support mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing, and she creates learning spaces that invite grounding, connection, and self expression.

Stefania is especially passionate about local and regenerative textile systems. Through her work, she encourages students to reconnect with the land, materials, and communities that sustain their craft. For her, education is not just about technique, it is about fostering resilience, creativity, and meaningful relationship with the ecosystems we belong to.

Facilitator

Tracy is a fibre artist and educator with over twenty years of experience working in textiles, including running her small business, We Are Stories. Her practice spans sewing, pattern drafting, weaving, and plant dyeing, grounded in a deep commitment to slow, hands-on processes. For several years she has cultivated a substantial dye garden that supports both her creative work and teaching.

Tracy teaches weaving at Kootenay Studio Arts and offers plant dyeing workshops throughout the community, where she shares both practical skills and the deeper connections between material, land, and process. She is passionate about creating welcoming, collaborative learning spaces rooted in skill sharing and exchange. 

Tracy’s growing interest in the soil-to-soil lifecycle of fibre—from seed to thread—reflects her commitment to fostering a sustainable fibre ecosystem in the West Kootenays.

Board Member

Raised in Crescent Valley on Sinixt Territory, Senna has deep ties to her community. She spent her young adult life working on ambulance and in harm reduction clinics. During this time, she developed a strong passion for practices and teachings that supported her emotional and spiritual hygiene.

She found grounding in the methodical, meditative handworks introduced to her during her formative years at the Nelson Waldorf School. Guided by the belief in a connection between head, heart, and hands, she sees craft as a powerful tool for grounding, connection, deeper learning, and processing lived experience.

After leaving the health services field, Senna attended the Kootenay School of the Arts, where she refined her sewing skills, explored plant-based dyes, and was introduced to floor loom weaving. 

As an emerging textile artist, she is passionate about the intricate social fabric that textiles creates—connecting young to old, humans to plants and animals, and the hands to the head and heart. 

Board Member

Kierra McIntyre is a passionate advocate for slow fashion and community-centered sustainability. With a background in organizing vibrant clothing swaps in Edmonton and Nelson, she has long been committed to fostering local, circular approaches to style and consumption. Her creative work in upcycled fashion was recognized at Western Canada Fashion Week in 2013, where she showcased award-winning designs celebrating resourcefulness and reuse.

Kierra’s training as an occupational therapist and in permaculture has deeply shaped her worldview, instilling a strong belief in the interconnectedness of all things. She brings this systems-thinking perspective to her role on the board of the West Kootenay Fibreshed, where she envisions a regenerative textile future grounded in community, creativity, and care for the land.

Recently returning to the Kootenays with her partner has brought a deep sense of taking root. Kierra is excited to immerse herself in this new chapter, inspired by her fellow artists, makers, and board members. She finds joy in gardening, making, natural dyeing, and all things that bring her closer to the natural world.

Board Member

My name is Jacoba but I go by Cobi!

Born in New Mexico and raised in Oregon, Washington, and Nelson, British Columbia, my creativity and connection to art and fibre was fostered from childhood through my mother and her parents, who were/are lifelong artists. Growing up with art and making as a backbone to my upbringing and education, creativity is the lens in which I see and interact with the world.

I’ve always been drawn to fashion and fabric, and by grade six I was thrifting and already identifying garments by the fibres they were made from. This early love of natural fibre led me to floor-loom weaving, which I taught myself, and eventually expanded into sewing and most recently pattern drafting, both on paper and digitally.

Alongside my creative path, I’ve had a long career in business and operations, which has added a complexity and practicality to my creativity. I live with a continuous curiosity for learning and engaging deeper with all things fibre, art, fashion, nature, meaning, and community.

Board Member

Dani Black (she/her) finds grounding in her creative practice centered around fibre arts. Dani practices knitting, embroidery, weaving, needle felting, sewing, and dyeing. She’s had a passion for crafts and all things handmade since her mom taught her how to knit when she was 13. Through her fibre practice, Dani continues to find connection to her matriarchal lineage of spinners and quilters.

Dani has a background working in yarn shops, facilitating knitting classes for youth and adults ,working in forest schools, and working on organic vegetable farms. Prior to relocating to the Kootenays, Dani completed a three-month long bike packing journey from Mexico to Costa Rica. She’s now immersed in full time studies at the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute where she finds joy and passion creating spaces for creativity in Nelson and the surrounding community.

Dani gratefully acknowledges that she lives and works on the traditional territory of the Sinixt, Ktxunana, Secepmuc and Metis people in Nelson, and honors her roots in Ontario on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.

Board Member

Kim Klassen is a sustainability consultant with over two decades of experience working across sectors including energy, regenerative agriculture, bioplastics, and Indigenous collaboration. In recent years she has returned to her passion for wool and textiles and is committed to strengthening local and Canadian fibre systems.

Kim attended the International Wool Textile Organization’s 94th Congress in Lille, France in 2025, where she connected with the global wool community and deepened her understanding of the challenges facing the industry. With wool representing only a small fraction of global textiles and supplies declining, she is passionate about supporting Canadian wool farmers and regional fibre economies.

Locally, Kim supports the circular textile community as sustainability consultant for KORE Outdoors’ ReHub program, where she conducted a social and environmental impact audit for the 2025 season. The program repaired 509 outdoor gear items, avoiding approximately 14.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by repairing rather than replacing products.

Kim is committed to helping grow a resilient regional fibre system through collaboration, stewardship, and community knowledge-sharing.

Board Member

Krista’s passion for fibre began when she taught herself to knit during a university exchange in New Zealand, a country where sheep outnumber people. She later ran a successful wool dye studio in Vancouver’s Chinatown for many years, collaborating with designers, makers, and community builders, and witnessing firsthand how fibre practices weave together connection. Now working as a Social Worker supporting neurodivergent clients, Krista sees daily the therapeutic value of engaging with fibre practices in both clients and for herself.

Her background in Environmental Sustainability and decade of experience working with non-profit organizations and local government to build resilient environmental networks informs her strong interest in the fibreshed movement. She is inspired by the opportunity to strengthen the fibre industry in a changing climate and believes strongly in the fibreshed approach as a pathway toward resilience.

She moved to Nelson in 2023 with her partner and dog to live closer to nature and more fully in alignment with her values.

Board Member

Jade Jeffers grew up in the Kootenays on Sinixt Territory, where the landscape and local community shaped her interest in fibre arts and sustainable living.

She is passionate about handcraft, skill sharing, and building community through making, mending, and collaboration.

Jade enjoys build relationship with the fibres she works with, exploring the history of found, reclaimed, and locally grown materials, and she is especially passionate about recycling fibre from previously made and well-loved garment.

Hand and machine knitting remain her creative anchors, offering both expression and support for her mental wellbeing. She especially finds joy in creating and mending clothing for her family, guided by care, practicality, and the quiet satisfaction of making things by hand.

Jade believes in the power of collective work to strengthen connections between people, land, and fibre. With the Fibreshed, Jade wishes to share her practices while continuing to deepen them. She is committed to nurturing skill-sharing, relational networks, and a regenerative, locally rooted textile system, and she is excited to contribute to the vision of a resilient fibre future with the West Kootenay Fibreshed.