Green Options

While banana fabric might be hard to find, banana yarn is not. In fact we’ve talked about All Eco Banana Silk, a yarn whose fibers are hand crushed to get the material to spin.

This week’s Yearn Worthy Yarn comes from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Spiritual Trail Fibers specializes in rare, endangered, and unusual breed spinning fibers.

This spinnery offers many types of fibers, which are all hand spun and then hand dyed or painted in small batches.

So I’m going to put this up there with spinning yarn from your dog’s hair; interesting that it can be done, but not quite yearn worthy (stray strands of hair sometimes really freak me out.)

But using your hair, human hair, as fiber to create clothing can be done, as this woman from Romania has shown us. (Hat tip to CraftStylish for the story.)

Bistrita Nasaud, grew her hair from the age of 16 until it was 40 inches long so she could weave it and created nine items of clothing out of her hair.

We all know of Bono’s work on issues of the environment, poverty and AIDS.  With a hand in creating campaigns like ONE Campaign, DATA, (RED) and EDUN it is safe to say that the U2 frontman spends his fair share of time and effort on the greater good.

But does the rocker know about the importance of safety in cosmetics?  He has been spotted of late wearing a healthy dose of the black stuff on the covers of Rolling Stone, SPIN, Q Magazine and at the Grammys and the Brits. 

Well, Bono, if you have yet to discover the health benefits of using nontoxic makeup and skin care, let me point you in the right direction.

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.

Just over a year ago, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Roxanne Christensen, co-founder and President of the Institute for Innovations in Local Farming. The Institute promotes Small Plot Intensive (SPIN) farming techniques first codified by Wally Satzewich, a farmer from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The idea behind SPIN farming is to give step-by-step instructions for creating a profitable farm on an acre or less of land in order to promote the development of local, organic food supplies. Through their method, even a 1/8th acre part time hobby farm can generate $10,000 – $20,000 a year with a full 1 acre farm bringing in $50,000 – $65,000 a year.

This year, they have come out with a SPIN gardening guide for the home gardener. It is not just for those with large backyards, either. Like the SPIN farming guide, it can be used to help organize community gardens and neighborhood produce co-ops. The original SPIN farm, run by Wally and his wife, is spread out over 25 neighborhood backyards.

The idea of the SPIN garden is to turn your home garden or neighborhood land into a significant, valued food source. The guide helps you understand how to grow high value crops – those that retail for more than $50 per harvest per short bed - and calculate the value of your harvest, so you know exactly what you are saving by growing your own organic produce. At the same time, it gives you a list of equipment you will need, and estimated costs, so you can garden like a pro. High value crops include heirloom varieties of carrots, tomatoes and potatoes, salad and mesclun mixes, onions, shallots and scallions, fresh herbs and more.

As part of the activity around Earth Day, we've been getting press releases forwarded to us from all manner of companies who want to get their name out in association with "green." And, while it is good that so many companies are recognizing the growing importance of green in all our lives, some of the announcements are full of excitement about what turns out to be some pretty weak activity.

I got one

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