Order in fabrics and flowers

I like order. I like systems for keeping order. For me the orderly things are beautiful, but that is not why I like it. OK, maybe 5%, but the rest is about easily finding things and easily putting away what I have used. I ran into Marie Kondo and her Konmari type of tidying on several blogs. I have not read the book and although I have decided to read it just to see if there might be more useful stuff for me, I think I have already extracted the best bit for my purposes: The way she folds and stores clothes, towels and in my case now fabrics, is genius. At the same time it is so logical that I wonder why I have not thought about it before.

Basically she has everything stored vertically in draws or boxes. You see everything at a glance and it is easy to extract what you need without disturbing the rest and equally easy to put it back.

My coloured cottons have lived in old grocer's mushroom boxes since we moved. The colours have been sorted, but I had them stacked in piles inside the boxes. This resulted in a mess after couple of rounds of sewing. Getting to a certain piece of fabric always meant disturbing the whole pile.

These still live where they were before, but my system is improved vastly, because I can seewhat I have. My neutral cottons are in a different place, more about those later.

I also have couple of boxes filled with knit fabrics for doll making.

My husband and son claim that I am OCD with my wish to have order and this might come close...at least borderline. I visited Josie's shop&studio and needed a small scrap of certain colour. She directed me to her scrap bags, which were in colour families. I edit my scraps about yearly and while I was at it I thought that Josie's system would make it easier for me to find that certain scrap I am after.

Did I tell you I have a cutting garden on our allotment? I am enjoying having pretty flowers in the house and suprising my friends with them. Here is my living room bouquet today:

Do you have ways of keeping your sewing/craft supplies in good order? Leave a link if you have blogged abut this, because I LOVE to see other people's work spaces and ways of organising their supplies.

Green things

 I had the luck to get some pretty fabrics from my very local quilting studio. The talented owner Josie runs classes and sells also fabrics. She is online as well here and is situated so close to my front door that I don't even need a jacket to go and visit. Luckily the studio is not open daily, it is tempting enough as it is. Josie had two day January sales and I went to see if there was anything I could see immediate use for. Actually I was after a dress fabric, but alas, did not find one. The fabric above came home and I am now thinking what I am going to make out of it.

Similar colours in this fabric, which I decided to use as a table cloth. I had a trial run, the cloth unhemmed, just to see how I liked it. I did like it and as it was a tad short, I made a border out of some hand dyed batik from Africa.  I even did the border in double , so no raw seams are visible and the cloth stays put a bit better with more weight around the edges.

Another green craft; a bookmark. Very simple, a leather thong with some big wooden beads. I have used it a lot and might just make another, as I always have more than one book on the go.

 Apart from sewing in green, I have been busy supporting the local Green Party. I might not agree on every policy the Greens have, but their ethics and most of the policies coincide with my personal ethics and wishes. I cannot see how the mankind will survive if we don't make quite many drastic changes on how we live on this planet. (And that is just looking at some pretty recent reports on fauna/flora/climate changes we have caused). The changes need to be both individual, local, national and international. I also like the fact that they don't campaign by rubbishing others, but by telling how they would like to do things.

You could see what policies/parties align with your thinking here. "Vote for policies, not for personalities" online questionnaire is a great tool to narrow down the party/parties you might want to have a closer look at preparing yourself for the voting in parliamentary elections in May. 

On the creative front my mind is awash with all sorts of projects and I might even make a note of them as I don't think that I manage to get them all done before the mad gardening season begins. At the moment it is very cold though and the wind has blown a hoolie both yesterday and today. In my sleepy state yesterday morning I thought that a jet was flying past us, until I realised that the noise continued be there and that I was listening to the waves crashing on the seafront, not far from our house!

2014 Edited List of Organic and Fair Trade Fabric Suppliers

I wrote this post  a good while ago and have now edited it a bit. Some of the traders have stopped and there are new places I have found since the first time around. In addition, when I have cast my eyes on the stats of this blog, this seems to be the post getting regular hits. I deduct that there is a need for this type of a list.

The debate following Sarai's post here brought up an issue many a home seamstress has undoubtedly thought about; what is the pedigree of the material I am using? I don't have shops to choose from where I live. There is a fair drive to the nearest shop selling dressmaking fabrics and I can get a very limited range of quilting/craft cottons in the town I live, so most of my fabrics come via internet.

I would like to choose better, although there are times when needs or artistic requirements must. It is no get-out clause, just being realistic about how much choice there is about. My recent internet research shows that the choice is far greater than just a few years back.

It is not all about organic-not organic either. Just by buying linen instead of cotton, if it is practical, saves the environment. Linen has a shortish growing period from seed to fibre and doesn't need as many chemicals. It is also a plant, which grows in colder climates.

 

Wool is of course great, it comes from animals, which grow it again and again, although the process of making it to fibre- yarn- fabric is not necessarily so.

There is also bamboo, growing at an unimaginable speed. I do not know how environmentally friendly the process of extracting the fibres from the bamboo is. Many eco-friendly firms seem to market the fibre, so I hope that it is OK.

Here are some links to the shops I have found. If you have others, please add in the comments and I will edit my list. The list is UK centred with a clear intent, but the shops send to other countries too.



Fair Trade Fabric sells fabrics and habedashery, both organic and fair trade! Good place to start.

Organic Cotton sells of course cotton, but also bamboo and linen fabrics. You can also buy organic sewing thread. They know personally the weavers of their fabrics! The site lay-out is slightly old-fashioned in my mind, but I don't care, they have great stuff to reasonable prices and it is fairly traded.

Ecotale sells linens sourced from European factories (less airmiles, no labour exploitation). They have a very informative site about how to choose the linen for your project.

Eco Earth  has a vast array of undyed organic fabrics. There are a few coloured ones in between as well. You can even buy silk, which is made without harming the larva inside the cocoon. If you want to make your own cloth nappies, this is the site to visit. They have all the things for it, also FOLD OVER ELASTIC! I have had such hard time trying to find anybody selling this in the UK. They also sell fabric dyes suitable for the fibres in fabrics, so you can have these things with some colour.


The following shops are not dedicated organic/fair trade shops, but have in their collection organic fabrics.

Just put "organic" in the search box, so you don't need to trawl through all the collections to decide which ones qualify.

Ray Stitch  has a good choice of different types. It also has 100% wool felt in three different thickness and bamboo jersey.


Merchant And Mills has some organic fabrics and in general fabrics I love. They are oldfashioned, great quality fabrics in pretty muted palette. This is the stuff the classics are made of. 

Celtic Fusion fabrics 
They have organic prints to die for. I had to speed navigate away from their site as I was in dire straits on temptations. You are warned!

Frumble Fabrics
Very geometric and modern vintage inspired prints this year.

The Eternal Maker 
Here you need to go "type of fabric" and choose organic.
There are over 200 different prints, so you are spoiled for the choice.

The Wool Felt Company
has not organic felt, but has a selection on 100% wool felt, also some handmade!

For readers in the US and of course others as well

Simplifi Fabric  has a great selection of both fabrics in different fibres and baby related items. Brilliant place.

The fabric illustrations in this post are all organic, as far as I remember. Most of them are out of print, but there are equally cute things on the offer out there. Monaluna is responsible for the animal ones and they tend to have this type quirky prints, which melt my heart.

Stripes

in shirts are Elf Son's favourite. I could buy my son a top to the price of making one, but the quality of the material would not be this good. They wash without piling and look as new after heavy use. And as before, no Mums were harmed in making of these garments!

 I bought the material for these in here. Although the material needs to come all the way from Germany, it is really worth the wait. I generally wait until I have a need for  several things and then order "in bulk". Many of the fabrics do have the "oeko-tex" mark. The 100% cotton jerseys are thick and really good quality.  Their viscose jerseys are nice too, just much more slinky to handle, naturally. I made a grey skirt of it last year.

I don't make all my son's clothes, not even nearly. We get some hand-me-downs, I buy some second hand and few new. All in all he doesn't seem to need or want too many clothes and wearing a uniform to school takes care of the everyday clothes. Obviously he changes when he comes home, but a set of clothes can be worn several days at this age.

Confession: I took the black and white shirt off the son's back and artfully folded one sleeve as to hide a food stain on the sleeve. 

List of suppliers of organic and Fair Trade fabrics

THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED AND RE-PUBLISHED HERE

This is a bit of a continuation of the previous post. The debate following Sarai's post here brought up an issue many a home seamstress has undoubtedly thought about; what is the pedigree of the material I am using? I don't have shops to choose from where I live. There is a fair drive to the nearest shop selling dressmaking fabrics and I can get a very limited range of quilting/craft cottons in the town I live, so most of my fabrics come via internet.

I would like to choose better, although there are times when needs or artistic requirements must. It is no get-out clause, just being realistic about how much choice there is about. My recent internet research shows that the choice is far greater than just a few years back.

It is not all about organic-not organic either. Just by buying linen instead of cotton, if it is practical, saves the environment. Linen has a shortish growing period from seed to fibre and doesn't need as many chemicals. It is also a plant, which grows in colder climates.

 

Wool is of course great, it comes from animals, which grow it again and again.

There is also the bamboo, growing at an unimaginable speed. I do not know how environmentally friendly the process of extracting the fibres from the bamboo is. Many eco-friendly firms seem to market the fibre, so I hope that it is OK.

Here are some links to the shops I have found. If you have others, please add in the comments and I will edit my list. The list is UK centred, but the shops send to other countries too.



Fair Trade Fabric sells fabrics and habedashery, both organic and fair trade! Good place to start.

Organic Cotton sells of course cotton, but also bamboo and linen fabrics. You can also buy organic sewing thread. They know personally the weavers of their fabrics! The site lay-out is slightly old-fashioned in my mind, but I don't care, they have great stuff to reasonable prices and it is fairly traded.

Ecotale sells linens sourced from European factories (less airmiles, no labour exploitation). They have a very informative site about how to choose the linen for your project.

Eco Earth  has a vast array of undyed organic fabrics. There are a few coloured ones in between as well. You can even buy silk, which is made without harming the larva inside the cocoon. If you want to make your own cloth nappies, this is the site to visit. They have all the things for it, also FOLD OVER ELASTIC! I have had such hard time trying to find anybody selling this in the UK. They also sell fabric dyes suitable for the fibres in fabrics, so you can have these things with some colour.

Ray Stitch  is not dedicated organic fabric store, but has a good choice of different types. It also has 100% wool felt in three different thickness and bamboo jersey.

The following shops are not dedicated organic/fair trade shops, but have in their collection organic prints. Just put "organic" in the search box, so you don't need to trawl through all the collections to decide which ones qualify.

Celtic Fusion fabrics
Saints and Pinners
Frumble Fabrics
The Eternal Maker  Here you need to go "type of fabric" and choose organic.
There are over 200 different prints, so you are spoiled for the choice.





The fabrics in this post are all organic, as far as I remember. Most of them are out of print, but there are equally cute things on the offer out there. Monaluna is responsible for the animal ones and they tend to have this type quirky prints, which melt my heart.

I could eat these

Look at this loveliness! It dropped in with mail a couple of days ago and has been stroked and admired constantly since. These lovely fat quarters came from here. I really have to regulate my visits to their site as it is very tempting to buy. Anyhow, this time I have a project in mind and feel justified spending a bit to make it perfect. It is as usual a present, so won't be discussed into detail before I have given it away.

Even the Husband said that the fabrics looked good...