Meet Giraffa O'keefe  - an eye pillow created by Herbal Animals.  The fabric is a 100% GOTS certified organic cotton interlock. This fabric was a co-creation with Herbal Animals founder, Lauren.  She wanted a giraffe design so we worked together to create a design that would work for her needs and then had it hand screen printed at a GOTS certified facility in India. She took half of the production run into her business and I have been selling the rest through Harmony Art.  I love this co-creating process and am always happy to help people bring their vision to life.

I also LOVE LOVE LOVE witnessing the creative ways that different people use our organic  fabrics in different ways! Stay tuned to our next blog post (I promise I'll get it up soon!) . . . where I will introduce you to Tamika our newest brand ambassador who has a whole new take on how to bring this Giraffe fabric to life.

Meanwhile, if you have a fabric concept you want help getting materialized (pun intended!), feel free to contact me.  Let's talk!

June 27, 2011 Jen Madsen of Stitch Simple emailed me this statement: ". . . we need, you know that 'dirty dozen' list for organic produce?  How about a list of most environmentally friendly arts and crafts supplies or home décor items?"

I thought she was absolutely right! But how to rate, rank, educate and not overwhelm people is no easy task. Fabrics are so much more complex than fruits and vegetables. As the idea progressed, I contacted Leigh Anne of Oecotextiles. She has one of the most comprehensive and thorough blogs about textiles and the chemicals in them. She is my go-to for the chemistry and statistics so I asked if she would be willing to help. Thankfully, she agreed!

The three of us (Jen, Leigh Anne, and myself) knew that there was SOOOO much information that one infographic was not going to do. Our goal then became to put together a series and it was decided that we would start with BABY since that seems to be the most common entry point for people when it comes to organic fibers. I took a stab at the graphic, I redid it about 20 times. It stalled and stammered. My dear friend Suz enlisted her graphic design friend Alison who took a shot at revamping my sad attempt. It helped but also lost the entire fabric focus. We knew we lost our audience. Alison did the work pro bono and I thank her deeply for helping move the project forward in April of 2012 and highlighting where we went astray (focus!).

It stalled for months. I was sick of looking at it and frankly didn't know what to do. In September of 2012 I was contacted by Linsi of Spark Collaborative. We had a mutual friend Rachel Hulan who connected the dots. I bit the bullet and hired Spark Collaborative to take a shot at it. I sent them various versions, thoughts, and challenges. The name was changed from Worst Things/First Things to Textile Truths (duh!) and the layout started to pull together.

I sought help from Suz again (she is an editing wizard with decades of experience!), my friend Madge (a marketing maven and hiking tour leader extraordinaire), and a select few others (you know who you are!!). Changes: color changes, text changes, font changes, layout changes, pattern changes, alignment changes and more changes were made. Then I sent it to GOTS to make sure they would approve of the logo usage. Whew. It got their blessing and now . . .  drum roll please . . .

IT IS OUT IN THE WORLD at last. Will it fill the need we aimed to address? Will anyone read it and care? Will it go viral and ignite different purchasing behavior? Launch a helpful series? Help all organic fabric companies to be better appreciated for what they are doing? Will it crawl under a rock never to be seen? I don't know. Time will tell. I can tell you that I am very grateful to have it no longer haunting my to-do list! I also want to acknowledge all of the kind, thoughtful people who helped in this journey. I LOVE YOU and COULDN'T HAVE FINISHED THIS WITHOUT YOU!

I VERY MUCH welcome your feedback (too late for changes to this version) and if all goes as hoped (and prayed for) we will be releasing other versions for: Home, Fashion, Pets, etc.

Please feel free to share this with anyone you think would be interested.

Buckets full of hugs and gratitude to each of you. It is my gift to the organic fiber community and the world. I hope you like it.

When I launched Harmony Art Organic Design in January 2005, I was looking to create a business (really a job) for myself in my field (textile design) that I could feel good about.  Reality was that in 2005 there were no fabric companies making organic cotton prints.  Oh sure, there were a few pioneering companies like Patagonia and Green Babies that were making clothing using organic cotton printed fabrics but unless you were big enough to do your own production runs (1,000 + yards), you had no selection.  This left small businesses and home sewers virtually without any organic fabric options beyond beige, oatmeal or granola.  It also left this textile designer with next to no job opportunities beyond the toxic traditional ones.

In 2005, there were over 40 eco-textile standards to choose from.  (Talk about confusing!) The OTA was writing their own Fiber Processing Standard and since then have worked collaboratively to develop the Global Organic Textile Standard or GOTS.  Just last month the USDA's NOP program acknowledged and ok'd the use of GOTS for textiles labelled as organic.  (THIS IS BIG NEWS!)

What started as a quest for a job I could feel proud of, became a vision/mission to change the way textiles were produced.  I wanted to help move the textile business from being one of THE MOST TOXIC industries to one of the most thoughtful.  To that end, I would need many more companies to embrace organics!

Six and 1/2 years later... I am proud and honored and encouraged to report that indeed the textile industry has caught on!  No longer alone, many independent organic fabric companies (Mod Green Pod, Oliveira Textiles, Cloud9, Daisy Janie, Birch Fabrics, etc) have started and with this spring's Quilt Market even the biggest names in quilting fabrics have joined the organic fabric team.  Large fabric companies like Rowan, Clothworks, Robert Kaufman, and Michael Miller have released printed organics.  Even the amazing and oh-so-popular and lovely Amy Butler has released an organic cotton collection.  Quilt Market's latest trend report highlighted organic fabric's proliferation.  Over the years, I have spoken directly or indirectly to just about every one of these companies and designers.  I've watched it all and personally participated in much of it.

It is safe to say that organic fabric is no longer just shades of oatmeal and granola!  Although still a small fraction of the conventional cotton being produced, organic fabrics are no longer fringe.  They are a force (much bigger than me) to be reckoned with.  It's been an honor and a privilege to be a part of this movement.  It's been exciting and thrilling to watch it grow and expand.  Thank you to each and every one of you who has understood, purchased, supported, encouraged, challenged and embraced this journey.  Without a doubt it has been the people along the way that have made this movement happen.  I am just one small part.  I think collectively we have much to be proud of. 

What do you think?  Is the mission accomplished?  Is it time for a new goal?  I'd love to get your perspective either through this blog publicly or privately by phone or email.  I look forward to your feedback.  

With sincere gratitude,