Why is it so Hard to find Oganic Fabrics??

That’s a mighty fine question.  What’s more, when I decided that I would open a new Etsy shop  ( http://www.x2useittwice.etsy.com) which is devoted to reducing waste, using organic materials, and upcylcing, I started calling the local fabric stores to ask them about their organic fabric supply.  I was shock to hear their response, “What do you mean.”  What do you mean??  Wow!  The local Quilting shop was very helpful.  She explained to me that the Organic supply of fabrics is presently very low and are created on a very small scale.  Because of this many of the prints do not have a clarity of the larger printing shops.  This is something that I have not noticed but I am not a fabric supplier and do not look at several hundred fabric swatches a week.

To get a good selection, I’ve had to hit the online shops.  Here a couple good ones that I have found:

http://www.organiccottonplus.com/ <- large selection, reasonable priced, good reputation.
http://www.pmorganics.com/index.htm <- great selection of bright prints, limited selection
http://www.nearseanaturals.com/index.php <- great selection, more expensive, premium fabrics

To Rip or Cut?

During the process of making blankets, which are generally square, the repetitive action of cutting little squares over and over becomes tedious.  There’s got to be a better way.  Consider the rip!  Although many talented quilters would probably cringe at the idea of ripping fabrics, as they love the careful precision of neat little triangles and squares.  I think my life better parallels the quick and dirt rip method.  Grab that piece of satin and rip to your heart content.  I work with satins quite a lot and they tear wonderfully!  Good cottons will keep their line too.   So embrace the rip!

The rebirth

In 7th grade Mrs. April called me super woman for threading my sewing machine needle backwards at my first ever attempt. There was nothing super about it, just a 12 year old over thinking the process. I loved that home economics class. I don’t even know if present day Jr. High and High schools still have the same sort of classes. Always geared toward girls, sewing (certainly my favorite aspect of the class) should be a pre requisite for all boys and girls alike (that’ll be another post).

Mrs. April gave us the creative license to generate whatever sewing projects we wanted. Some girls took on clothes, pillows, quilts… But I was very fond of designing my own patterns and producing adorable stuff animals.

Years later schooling, a professional career, usurped any creative energy that I had years previous. Desperate to regain that bug, I started sewing again, but what to sew? I came back to my creative roots and started generating homemade patterns of adorable animals. Having young children of my own, I catered those projects to my little ones.
The purpose of this blog is to showcase those items while creating a resource/inspiration for other to again go through their own rebirth, or try something new.