Green Options

Located in the Pacific Northwest, Midnightsky Fibers is a great little yarn and fiber company that offers a variety of eco-friendly yarns and fibers.

From wool and wool blends to soysilk yarns, Midnightsky offers hand spun and hand dyed yarns and fibers. Special emphasis is placed on wool and wool blends with all natural and environmentally-friendly fibers used in the blends.

All of their yarns and fibers are available in their natural state, dyed, or hand painted, in addition to a number of fiber clubs and sock yarn clubs. They source their yarns and fibers from other small companies committed to supporting small artists and environmental issues.

Meaning “a place of trees,” Treliske is a 3000 acre organic farm, certified by the New Zealand Biological Producers and Consumers Council since 1986. Farmed by the Aitchison family for 3 generations, Treliske grazes Merino, Crossbred and coloured sheep flocks and principally produces high quality certified organic wool, on the South Island of New Zealand.

The Treliske merino wool range includes organic babywear, baby blankets, knitwear and knitting wool yarns which free from harmful chemicals. It is natural, undyed and unbleached and is grown and manufactured without the 8,000 chemicals found in the textile industry.

I am a very textural person. I love it. The more bumps, knobs, twists and turns in fiber, fabric and paintings, the more interested I am in the piece.

In my knitting, I go back and forth between simple, smooth knits that I’ll work into intricate cables and patterns, then back to bumpy knits that get worked into simple, smooth stockinette stitch. That’s why I love this great raw yarn from Hubu.

We’ve talked about the awesome properties of hemp in both yarn and fabric form before but never as a raw material that can be knit with. The hemp bark yarn is just that, the bark of the hemp plant.

I had the good fortune to recently visit the Southern hemisphere and explore a good portion of the country of Chile. And in whichever city or town I was in, handmade goods and local artisans and craftsmen were in abundance.

While on the island of Chiloé, the second largest island of Chile, the majority of the artisans sold hand knitted items and hand spun wool. I couldn’t have been more delighted!

Chiloé was a magical place for me, the views of the ocean and rolling farmland with happy and healthy looking cows and sheep and chickens, were such a pleasure to behold. The island holds much lore and is seeped in tradition, with hand spun wool being one of these traditions.

In exploring the markets filled with handmade goods, many of the women would sit and knit, creating their wares as people browsed. Or they would spin. Several had spinning wheels and would spin their wool into yarn, right then and there.

I see fat, winged babies in the gift card aisle.  I see rows upon rows of pink wrapped chocolates at every store I go to, even if it’s a tire shop.  I start seeing ads for “single awareness” parties.  This could only mean one thing… Valentine’s Day.  With V-day rapidly approaching, and no one forgetting about it, I started to struggle for ideas to give to my husband that are cute and fun while being green and sustainable at the same time.  Here are a few of the ideas I came up with, and will pass them along to you!  Regardless of if you’re single, partnered, or in one of those “it’s complicated” relationships, these are fun gift ideas that could be used for any day of the year.

One of my guiding philosophies, which I try to model for my children, is that we try to create for ourselves instead of buying: we make some of our clothes, we do some of our own gardening, and we often make toys and games instead of purchasing them.

To do these things, however, requires a set of practical skills that we as parents may not have learned when we, ourselves, were young. It was a painful process to teach myself how to sew on a hand-me-down sewing machine, for instance, I feel there’s a lot I don’t know about gardening even though I’ve read a LOT of books, and learning to knit from a youtube video? For me–impossible.

In previous generations I wouldn’t have had to teach myself how to cook, or make my own soap, or even breastfeed–I’d have had an entire community to teach me from childhood as part of the local culture. And that’s why, even though I try not to support most big-box stores with my money when I can instead shop at an independent store, there is one aspect of both big-box and local stores that I wholeheartedly support:

Last year, the Green Options writers shared their New Year’s Resolutions. In the course of the year, our blog network has grown and grown and grown.

This year I decided to continue the tradition by asking the writers at Eco Child’s Play to share their green resolutions for 2009.

Here’s what a few of our writers shared:

• Jessica  Gottlieb

I’m only walking the grocery store in 2009. Driving meant that I could pile more in my car that we’d needed to consume, and, of course, I was in the car.  Less stuff will come in or I’ll get stronger. Whole Foods is a half a mile away, and I run marathons so it’s inexcusable that I’d drive there.

• Jamie Ervin and The Polka Dot Family

Our green New Years Resolution is to grow and preserve enough food to carry our family through next winter. Our family also hopes to continue spreading the “green love” through outreach, education and implementation of change, especially in our local schools and among our neighbors.  We hope to continue growing little green people who have a strong social conscious. Most of all, our family resolves to keep living green one step at a time!
Jamie has also written about her New Year’s resolution to make soap!

Betsy Greer turned Craftivism into a Masters thesis. The creator of Craftivism.com, she believes that crafting and activism are meant to be together. Her new book, Knitting for Good, is a handbook of projects, tips, and thoughts on using your crafty skills to make the world around you a better place.

[Creative Commons photo by Gideon Tsang]

I came across Ethical Twist quite randomly while flipping through a knitting magazine. After that, the rest was history. I became charmed by their yarn and easy way of explaining their eco-practices; right down to the farmers that raise the sheep and right back up to their packaging.

They offer a 70/30 blend of organic wool and alpaca that comes in a natural range of colors. No dye is used and the fleece is what dictates the color outcome. While there is no color modification, that doesn’t mean the colors suffer. Natural, Oatmeal, Camel, Slate and Mink are quite lovely and rich.

They also offer a line perfect for knitting up baby wear. It is 85% organic wool and 15% baby alpaca. It only comes in cream, but the baby alpaca helps make it all the more hugable.

I know that I sometimes get carried away with animal fibers here on Crafting a Green World, especially when talking about yarn. I also know that the vegans out there need eco-friendly yarns too! So this one is for you my dear vegan friends.

Nashua Handknits has a Natural Focus Ecologie Cotton yarn perfect for your vegan knitting needs. It is a soft, worsted-weight pima cotton that is dyed using natural materials found all across the Americas, northern Asia, Europe, India and the East Indies.

The soft, natural hues are created with tree bark and various flowers. The color names suggest which ingredient was used to create the color, but you can never be sure. The light Indigo and Curcuma are especially lovely. The yarn has a quiet sheen and luster that helps your stitches pop.

With the holidays continuing their slow march up the calendar, I know that many of you will be hitting the road to visit friends and family. This shouldn’t mean that you have to leave your craft behind. Here are some tips to make your travels more craft friendly.

Pack it to go - Grab one of your tote bags and start adding all your crafting accessories needed for your current project. For my knitting projects, I keep a small zippered pouch stocked with small scissors, a tape measure, darning needle and stitch marker. I throw that in along with my yarn, needles and my pattern.

In the air - Knitting needles, small scissors under 4 inches, and sewing needles are permitted in carry on luggage. TSA recommends that your knitting needles be made of plastic or wood/bamboo, but metal needles are permitted. They urge caution if for some reason your supplies could be constituted as weapons, and suggest you bring a self addressed stamped envelope in case your items need to be shipped, but I’ve never had an issue.