Organic Discoveries

'Tell me is there a lot of variety with the organic fabrics?' asked Kim in the comments on my previous blog post. Although no expert, I was quick to share what I have learnt so far - below is my lightly edited email response to her....

Hi Kim,

There is indeed quite a variety of organic fabric, ranging in weight (home decor, voile, quilting/poplin etc) and an ever increasing variety of designs. I can’t source any locally (I have asked) but online in the right places there are lots to choose from, just type ‘organic’ in the search box. There are a few fabric designers who have their ranges printed on a number of different fabrics/substrates including organic cotton - Amy Butler comes to mind here. Some sites stock no organic fabrics, others like Hawthorne Threads have a large range.

As always, Etsy is a good place to look too. I have even found some Scanfil GOTS organic cotton thread on Etsy which is lovely to work with (bought from Sew Fine Fabric on Etsy, along with some Cloud 9 solids - they have low shipping rates too, even to Australia).

You just have to read carefully as some designs use the word ‘organic’ to describe a free-form design rather than the fabric composition. It seems to me that in the past a large percentage of organic designs were targeted at babies/young children, but I’m pleased to see a great many more general appeal designs being released more recently.

Cloud 9 is a relatively new fabric company which only uses organic cotton and low-impact dyes. Wildwood is one of their newest releases, which although listed as quilting weight, it is quite light weight, almost like poplin and would lend itself well to clothing too. Last night I checked their site again and they have up several yet-to-be-released ranges which look amazing - I can’t wait! (Click here)

The Intrepid Thread is a US bricks and mortar store which also sells online - and as a bonus, they (update-DID but not any more) have great shipping rates, including a special shipping rate for international orders of between 8 and 9.25 yards etc (also for larger orders too). They have a good range of organic fabrics, many currently on special.

Well I’m sure that’s more than enough info for now……looks like I have the basis of a blog post written here! I could have just answered ‘yes’ to your question.

:)

Karen

After reading my email and checking the Cloud 9 website, Kim discovered she had inadvertently bought some Cloud 9 fabric at her local Spotlight store recently.  We had a Spotlight store open in our town a few weeks ago but as yet they have no organic stock.

I'm really enjoying working with a selection of Cloud 9 fabrics from three different collections plus their new Cirrus range of solids, purchased from three US retailers. All their cloth is GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified organic cotton and has proven to be colourfast, including a navy/ocean Cirrus solid and also a deep purple/iris Cirrus solid (not shown above). The Cirrus solids are a different cloth type, being yarn dyed with a visible weave, some with a slight shot appearance, and they crease more than the prints (I prewash all fabric) and the darker the colour the more it seems to crease. The solids co-ordinate well with many of Cloud 9's print collections. The Cloud 9 quilting weight print collections are a beautiful finely woven, lightweight cloth with several of the prints and colourways coordinating well with each other. In the photo above I have used mostly Wildwood, along with some fabrics from the Acadia and Shape of Spring collections.

There are many, many good reasons to choose organic cotton, including their amazing range of beautiful prints - both available now and soon to be released. I know what I'll be suggesting for my own Christmas gifts.....



Sharing at WIP Wednesday.