About us

Welcome! Starfish Fibers offers a wide variety of fiber arts tools and supplies, ranging from raw materials to custom-designed 3D printed tools. Take a look around, and please send us a message if you have any questions!

Our values

  • Handmade in the USA

    Our Starfish Fibers brand handmade products are fully made in-house, or by partnering with other small, privately-owned businesses. We also source our materials and supplies domestically whenever possible.

  • Sustainable shipping

    Whenever we possibly can, we reuse shipping materials such as bubble wrap, filler paper, and boxes. Anything we can do to give single-use packaging supplies one more trip through the supply chain, we will.

  • Woman & Disabled Owned

    Starfish Fibers is solely woman-owned and disabled-owned, by a fiber arts enthusiast. By shopping with us, you're directly supporting our mission to empower and lift up disadvantaged people.

  • Made by humans, not AI

    All of the creative work here at Starfish (product design, product photography, written content, etc.) is done by real humans. We believe in building up and supporting human creativity, offline community, and deep connections.

  • Inclusion and support

    Our community grows and thrives when we welcome and nurture everyone. All of us were beginners once, and all of us have our own challenges with our crafts. The only thing we gatekeep is gatekeeping.

  • Made to last

    All of our 3D printed products are designed to be durable, robust, and sturdy through years of regular use. By iteratively improving our designs based on customer feedback, we extend the lifespan of everything we make.

Sustainability

Running our business sustainably is a high priority for us. Here's how we do it:

Packing materials

We keep packing materials such as boxes, bubble wrap, paper filler, and more from our own online orders. Customers and friends donate their own packing materials as well. Whenever possible, we use materials from this stash before we use new ones.

3D printer waste

3D printing isn't without its issues, though, including waste plastic from start-up purges and failed prints. We keep all of this waste plastic and collect it in a Terracycle box to ship off for composting.

Additionally, not every "failed" print is destined for the Terracycle box. Prints that only have cosmetic flaws go into our Factory Seconds clearance section, marked down significantly from retail price.

One way to reduce failed prints is by cleaning the build plates regularly, which requires isopropyl alcohol and paper towels. We keep the used paper towels as shop rags for cleaning up more gunky messes later.

As for the spools our 3D printing filament comes on, our primary supplier (2/3 of our colors) accepts empty spools for reuse. We save big boxes and fill those with our empties to mail back.

Solar panels and battery backup

The building we operate in has solar panels and a battery backup, which keeps us roughly 95% self-powered.

Starfish?

The story

An old man had a habit of early morning walks on the beach. One day, after a storm, he saw a human figure in the distance moving like a dancer. As he came closer he saw that it was a young woman and she was not dancing but was reaching down to the sand, picking up a starfish and very gently throwing them into the ocean.

"Young lady," he asked, "Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?"

"The sun is up, and the tide is going out, and if I do not throw them in they will die."

"But young lady, do you not realise that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You cannot possibly make a difference."

The young woman listened politely, paused and then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves, saying: "It made a difference for that one."

The old man looked at the young woman inquisitively and thought about what she had done. Inspired, he joined her in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.

We firmly believe in giving back to our community, and helping those in need. All of us were starfish once, and we can all be the young woman in the story too.

Learn more about how we give back