You can’t beat hemp for practicality, and this number, simply and logically titled 100% Hemp Dress White, is that and more. Pictured is offered from The Hemptest in Boston, whose been in biz since 1995.
Owner Mitch Rosenfield also has Massachusetts stores in Cambridge and Northampton. Add neighboring Burlington, Vermont for a total of four stores. His impressive web store appeases those beyond the northeast communities. Gee, that makes five stores. [...]
So far in the Fabulous Fabrics series, I’ve been looking at offerings from independent designers as well as specialty online shops. We’ve seen organic cotton, recycled fleece, hemp, and other fabrics that try to step more lightly on our common home.
That’s great for people reading this blog and other green crafting blogs, but large scale change is going to require many, many crafters demanding organic and other earth-friendly products. If all the products are sequestered in little green boutiques, that’s going to be a slow process. What about the crafters who aren’t reading this blog? Do they know these products exist? Have any of these products gone mainstream? I went on a hunt through some of the biggest mainstream fabric shops’ websites to find out.
From A to Z and across the globe are earth-friendly status bags for every imaginable purpose. I start with Alchemy Goods where founder Eli Reich combined his green lifestyle with a misfortune in Seattle. His stolen messenger bag story inspired him to become an accessory designer who combines bicycle inner tubes, car seat belts, and billboard vinyl.
The company was honored to display their messenger bag beginning May 15th at the Sustainable Fashion Symposium in The Design Museum of University of California at Davis, which runs until July 13th, 2008. So exciting that a blog was created just for the event.
I’ve been told that artistic Seattleites in the Emerald City are famed for introducing grunge music, and that the craze made unkempt appearances a trend. This cool unisex bag can style you either way; vogue or grunge!
Kelly posted last week about natural alternatives to icky synthetic fiber felt. I’d like to offer another green twist on a crafting staple: EcoSpun felt from Hart’s Fabric.
EcoSpun felt is made from post-consumer recycled PET plastic bottles. It’s sold in a 72″ width for $5.99 a yard with a minimum order of one yard.
PET, in case you were wondering, is polyethylene terephthalate. PET is the plastic used to make #1 bottles.
The Hemp for Vermont Bill was allowed to become law by Governor Jim Hughes on May 29th, without his signature. The bill overwhelmingly passed both the House and Senate several months ago, setting the stage for Vermont’s entrance into the industrial hemp arena.The non-profit advocacy organization Vote Hemp made the announcement, saying the new law regulates growth of industrial hemp by Vermont farmers. The interest in Vermont is for using hemp in food products and bedding for some of the state’s 140,000 cows.
Amenity designs bedding, pillows, wall art prints and nursery decor. Luckily for us, they also offer four of their fabrics in running yardage, printed on a blend of organic cotton and hemp. All of their fabrics are “printed by hand with non-toxic, water-based, eco-friendly dyes.”
Amenity’s fabric designs are based on nature, with names like “river” and “cove.” Don’t think about cute little leaf prints, though, except in their nursery collection. As you can see from the pillows above, made up in their “trail” fabric, we’re talking about some seriously bold and funky design.
PM Organics, like Near Sea Naturals, is an online shop crammed with “Textiles You Feel Good About.” PM Organics is currently closed as they move cross-country, but I thought I’d highlight them anyway since they are such a great source of eco-friendly fabrics and other supplies. You can sign up for their mailing list if you want an update when they get settled and re-open.
Their knits section includes organic cottons and blends in jersey, rib, fleece, terry, thermal, and interlock. Wovens include a few sateen sheetings, hemp and hemp blends, and twill. They also have organic cotton lace in three widths and 3/4 inch organic cotton twill tape which they note is “perfect for stabilizing seams, drawstrings, reinforcement or trim.” Organic cotton bias tape, elastic, and thread is currently sold out, but folks on the email list will get updated when they become available again.
The black floating seed crepe pictured above is 50% Organic Cotton/50% Tencel Crepe, and it’s only 10 bucks a yard. It also comes in nutmeg and seafoam. I had no idea what Tencel was, so I went to find out.
It turns out that Tencel is a brand name for a fiber called lyocell which is made of the cellulose found in wood pulp. That sounds great from a sustainability point of view compared to synthetic fabrics. But as with all products, you have to do your homework and be aware of the whole picture before making decisions.
Aussie Klara Marosszek has developed a commercially viable hemp building material. Fire and pest resistant hemp concrete is made by mixing hemp hurds (the pithy core of the stem), lime-based binder, water and a little sand. This is not a new technique, as century old bridges in France were made from hemp concrete.
Via: Treehugger
If you’ve read any of my submissions about hemp, you know I’m a staunch supporter of legalizing industrial hemp in this country.
It has many uses, but I’d never thought of decorative until seeing the story about the “Pastie Lady”. You want to publicize hemp and other natural resources, take a cue from 32 year old Jennifer Moss of Ojai, California.
That’s her on the left, decked out in a g-string, skirt and pasties, all made of hemp. Now, who could turn down a better reason for letting our farmers grow hemp, and establishing an infrastructure to produce such interesting clothing items?
It points up the urgency of Congressman Ron Paul’s latest legislation to decriminalize medical marijuana.
The latest case in point comes from Seattle, where a man was denied a liver transplant, after a University of Washington Medical Center committee denied him a place on the liver transplant list.
His crime? Using medical marijuana, even though it is authorized under Washington state law.
The victim, 56 year old Timothy Garon was authorized by his doctor [...]
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