Becky Striepe
Check out this fabulous organic cotton from Harmony Art! Harmony Susalla, (yes, Harmony is her real name) the company’s creative director, started out doing fabric design for a pajama company and then at a design firm for big box customers before striking out on her own to design her own line of fab Earth-friendly fabrics!
Harmony Art’s fabric line includes lovely shades of solids and nature-inspired prints. If you’re looking to stock up, there are a couple of options! She offers fabric through her site on a wholesale basis, but there are a bunch of places you can snag it from retailers:
- Organic Cotton Plus – U.S.
- Near Sea Naturals – U.S.
- Buy Me 10 Flowers – Netherlands
- Organic Fabric Online – Australia
- PM Organics -U.S.
- Natur-elle – Netherlands
- Volksfaden – Denmark
Fabric With a Conscience
Harmony Art’s gorgeous organic cotton is grown and certified organic. The fabric they source in the U.S. is certified USDA organic. Organic cotton from India gets its certification from Global Organic Textile Standard, a third-party certification company. On her site, Harmony talks about the reasons behind sourcing organic cotton from India:
India cotton farmers are committing suicide at alarming rates, one every 8 hours. When I learned this, I was moved to create an environmental art piece titled 2,300. The farmers are forced into constant debt by chemical and seed companies. Organic agriculture offers hope. We feel good that the international business/production that we are involved in supports positive change for the people it impacts directly and indirectly. 54% of all pesticides sprayed in India is put on cotton! We believe this is not a sustainable system and our organic cotton orders helps push the balance in a new direction.
You’ve gotta love beautiful fabric that makes such a positive impact!
Hi there. I am a Newfoundlander and Canadian and the puffin is our provincial bird, so I’m very interested in helping with your puffin project! Where can I find these fabrics in Canada?
Hey Sharman – Her fabrics are available online. I wonder if any of the U.S. retailers ships to Canada?
If you’re interested in the puffling project, you can hit up the Second National Trust of Scotland for info:
http://www.nts.org.uk/ContactUs/
70-90% of organic cotton is not really organic. These checkpoint companies will say as much. Since it passes through so many hands it’s easy to fool even them. They are working on it but 70-90% is still getting through, plenty of which still got certified because there is no universal standard to “really” test them. Too many entry points where the process can go wrong for them to monitor without help from government bodies and thenFDA is pretty hands off about it. They are trying but it’s an uphill battle. We need to lobby governmental change and force companies to do investigations at every stage of the process before buying from a manufacturer, including regular spot checks. Most people buying fake organic have no idea (and being small crafters understandedly cannot do these checks in person) that they are selling fakes. And if you are called in it it will be up to you to show you did everything in your power to research where it was coming from. If not, you are also liable.