Upgrading to Organic Cotton

I've always wanted to make my business as eco-friendly as possible, and up til now I've used a lot of eco felt made from recycled bottles, a material I love to work with for it's bright colours and
sustainability, people are always surprised and delighted to hear where the felt came from.

But I love the natural look and feel of cotton too, so I am taking a further step towards eco friendliness by introducing organic cotton for the designs which will be in my shop from September.

A statistic you hear a lot is that a massive 25% of the world's pesticides are used on cotton crops. That's truly staggering. These chemicals are extremely nasty, dangerous for the health of the workers who use them and for the environment as a whole. I want to do my part in changing this and I really believe that given a wider range of choices consumers will opt for alternatives too.

After a little research I found a supplier with a good range of organic fairtrade cottons, produced in India, many of them on handlooms. Whenever I've had a spare moment in the last few weeks I've been pulling out my little bundle of fabric samples and poring over them. I particularly love the crossweaves which you can see in the photo, made using two different colours of yarn woven together to make a beautiful grainy texture.

So far the process has been very exciting, and just looking at and touching the fabrics has been a great inspiration. Now I just have to wait for them to arrive so I can begin work, watch this space!