Fabulous Fabrics: Rubie Green Organic Cotton Prints

organic cotton prints from rubie green

Like Amenity, Mod Green Pod, and Oliveira Textiles, the fun new fabrics from Rubie Green are high end decorator fabrics with a high end price tag: about $90 per yard.

But oh, the lovely!

Pictured above are Megan, Patsy, and Portobello.  Rubie Green’s full line of fabrics includes two stripes, a zigzag, a funky zebra stripe print, a kind of lattice looking print, and a floral.  The zebra stripe and the zigzag come in two colorways each, and Patsy also comes in green, for a total of 12 fabrics.

What makes these fabrics green?  Well, here’s the rundown from their website:

  • 100% certified organic cotton
  • whitened without bleach
  • water-based, non-toxic inks
  • printing process minimizes water consumption – “the factory uses only one gallon of water per day!”
  • print only on demand to avoid waste
  • instead of chemicals, heat and pressure used to finish fabrics

Sounds pretty good, yes?  But here’s a fly in the ointment – the fabrics must be dry cleaned because of the lack of chemical finishing.  Machine washing will cause fading.  Here in Austin, that wouldn’t be a problem, because we have an environmentally friendly dry cleaner.  Elsewhere?  Maybe not so much.  I’m not going to overlook this fabric because of this requirement, but it goes to show how much change is required for truly sustainable fabric.  Not only does it need to be grown organically using fair labor and trade practices, manufactured without waste, and printed without toxic chemicals, but resources must be available to care for it properly so that it lasts, without harming the environment.

And since it’s intended for upholstery, I can’t imagine anyone’s going to throw a love seat in the washer all that often anyway.

Rubie Green has been in Domino twice – it probably helps that designer Michelle Adams used to work there, but who cares?  These fabrics deserve attention.  Adams actually worked on Domino’s first green issue, which gave her the idea to start Rubie Green as a way to build on her interest in enrvironmentally friendly design.  You can keep up with Adams on her blog, M. A. Belle, where she posts interior design ideas and inspirations.

Thanks to Green Your Decor and True Up for this find!

Images from Rubie Green.

More Organic Cotton Prints:

9 thoughts on “Fabulous Fabrics: Rubie Green Organic Cotton Prints”

  1. Oh, so pretty! I love that organic material is becoming more readily available!
    I wonder if handwashing with a mild soap would solve the dry cleaning problem?

  2. Oh, so pretty! I love that organic material is becoming more readily available!
    I wonder if handwashing with a mild soap would solve the dry cleaning problem?

  3. Oh, so pretty! I love that organic material is becoming more readily available!
    I wonder if handwashing with a mild soap would solve the dry cleaning problem?

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