By their very nature, quilts seem to be environmentally friendly items, made from recycled fabrics. That is not necessarily true, though, as Sue Roberts of Santa Rosa learned.
Sue, an avid quilter who is married and has grown children, returned to college recently and is now a senior at Sonoma State University. For her final project as a Liberal Studies major, she decided to investigate organically-grown fabrics and eco-friendly products for quiltmaking. What she found was a relative dearth of information and lack of interest in such products among the quilt shops in Sonoma County.
“I spoke with some of the sales reps who supply fabrics to the quilt shops, and even they were unaware of ‘green’ fabrics,” said Sue.
Part of the problem is that, as with organically grown foods, the fabrics tend to be more expensive and therefore less appealing to thrifty quilters. Also, the use of natural dyes narrows the spectrum of colors and prints that are possible to produce.
Sue did find, however, a manufacturer of organic cotton fabrics right here in our backyard: Harmony Art of Gualala. Harmony Art offers a fairly extensive line of cottons in prints and solids that are soft, elegant, and suitable for quilting. They are more expensive than most quilting fabric, but Harmony Art fabrics are 60″ wide, as opposed to the typical 45″ wide.
Alternative ‘green’ resources available to quilters are cotton/bamboo blends, cotton/hemp blends, and recycled fabrics. Manufacturers such as Hobbs and Fairfield offer battings made of organic cotton, wool, bamboo, and silk. Quilter’s Dream produces a batting called Dream Green, made from recycled soda bottles. On each package, it says how many bottles were diverted from the landfill. How could anyone resist?
I have used the Dream Green and found it to be a fine batting, but some quilters object to it. “I don’t want plastic in my quilt,” some have said. But quilters use plastic in their quilts all the time; that’s what polyester is. Obviously, consumers need education!
For her final project, Sue created an organic cotton quilt using fabrics from Harmony Art and batting from Hobbs. Included here is a picture of her display board on which she has swatches of various fabrics, battings, and brochures from manufacturers. In addition, she has written a 17-page paper in which she explores the multiple issues surrounding organically-grown fibers. She awakened my interest, and helped me locate a few good sources of information:
Harmony Art Organic Design – http://www.harmonyart.com/index.html
Forever Green Quilting – http://www.forevergreenquilts.com/
