Eco Love

Thanks to Eco-Etsy, for including one of my Baby Tees in their selection of Eco Friendly Valentine's Day Gifts (and another in their treasury)!

You can check out the lovely selection of items here.

Sneak peak

A little peak at what I managed to accomplish this week! Life has been busy, I have been teaching full-time for the last 2 weeks and possibly will be for the next two. Not to mention the mounds and mounds of snow that are piling up outside that seem to slow everything down to a snail's pace. C'est la vie! Some warm, vibrant colours to warm you up!

I should be posting these in another day or two and you can get a full look at them then. Now off to enjoy a nice evening before the fire! Happy weekend, all!

Organic Knit Tops

This week's feature: Three new organic cotton knit tops that I designed and made for my daughter to keep the chill of winter away! Hooray!

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The first one I made was this classic long-sleeved top with a very subtly scooped neck which makes it easy to take off and put on but still allows for good coverage. Sewn with a beautiful soft striped blue / cream / grey organic cotton.

The second top I made was this turtleneck. Thanks to the stretchability of this rib knit, this turtleneck easily slips on and off, and if it didn't, my daughter would let me know! She loves the pink stripes on this one and I think the bold stripes make it a little more fun. Both of these styles would suit a boy or a girl.

The last top I designed is this tunic and is probably my favourite. I love the silhouette of this one and the muted tones as well, I could almost see me wearing it. For a little extra flare I made a shifted cowl neck and to me it just looks so classically chic - and on a little one, just darling. This tunic looks great over a pair of leggings.

I will be offering these in my shop. The fabrics in these tops are interchangeable and the tops themselves are made to order, so you can mix and match as you like!

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Next week if the stars align I will post about a new organic hat and onesie set. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week everyone!

~Laura

Tweet Tweet - New Baby Tee / Onesie

Yesterday I posted this new baby tee with the thought of sweet love in mind.



The design itself took many hours of playing with the subtlety of shape and colour and juxtaposition of various fabrics and this is what I happily settled on in the end. The calling bird and heart appliqués were cut from two fabrics by Harmony Art, a chili red heavy organic cotton flannel, and a sturdy interlock of paisley and flowers overtop called Ohio, which I absolutely adore.



I have a new onesie and hat set on the cooker that should be posted by next week - kind of a variation on an earlier set I made.

New Jammies

A couple of pics of M in her new Mama-made Christmas jammies - nice and cozy organic cotton flannel. She really needs warm pjs at night as she insists on being covered only with her favourite blankie, which is not warm enough for Mama's liking - but everything else she kicks off. Funny girl!

Etsy

Hey, this is pretty neat, I just made it to the front page of Etsy! My first time, I think (although there was one other time I had a huge amount of traffic to one of my tees but never did find out the source). I finally figured out how to "capture" one of these pages thanks to my brother who is a little more computer-savvy than me. So for posterity, here it is! (Baby-Grow Organic Hat in the top left corner.) Thanks to Shutter Kate for the selection. I think I'll go check out her other selections now! Happy Boxing Day, all! ~L.

Cha-cha-cha Changes!

Just to announce that I've decided to adjust my prices (for the better) for the time being in light of the change in the Canadian dollar, and also to make way for some changes in my shop in the coming year. Take advantage while you can! I hope to change my focus a little more towards an offering of more children's clothing and fewer accessories. I will still be keeping the favourites, but this will also let me make way for some new fabric options as well. I am really excited about some baby sets that I have coming up along with some new designs in the way of tops and pants for young children - all 100% sustainable of course! As my own two little ones grow it has always been my goal to have my offerings grow and change, while keeping a few signature pieces from each stage. So to new beginnings! Here we go!

Ho ho ho!

Here is a sneak peak at a festive onesie and hat set I made for the upcoming Fine Craft and Design Fair. I hadn't actually planned on making anything festive, but I was fiddling around with one of my hat designs and one thing flowed into another and I couldn't resist doing this little green elf hat. Then I decided to add the onesie to provide the option of a set. When I re-open my shop in the next day or two I will include one of these.

Meanwhile it is a balmy 19 degrees celcius here today when it is normally around zero! I don't know what's going on but it is starting to feel like Christmas in July!

Papa's Harvest

Here is proud Papa (Grand-papa, that is) with little M. preparing some of his apple harvest for the winter. Don't those apples look delicious! He grows these apples in his back yard along with pears, cherries and of course his vegetable garden. When I was growing up we lived for a couple of years on a farm "across the bay" (in Gillams to be exact) where along with being a principal of a high school, he managed to run a small farm. We left there when I was 4 to come back into town but he always kept his farmland, and he uses it to this day to grow and sell Christmas trees locally (despite my mother's best efforts to slow him down). Did I mention that he just celebrated his 75th birthday in September? It is nice to see that my little ones will get to witness this part of his life and to learn what it is to have an appreciation and respect of the land (and what it can offer us if we properly tend it).

Children Behind Our Cotton

Have you ever wondered where the cotton you buy comes from, and under what conditions it was grown in? If you haven't, consider this chilling fact cited in a report titled "The Children behind Our Cotton" by the Environmental Justice Foundation:

'The Children behind Our Cotton’ details the shocking conditions endured by more than an estimated one million children – some as young as five – who work 12-hour days in extremes of hot and cold weather, many suffering physical, verbal and sometimes sexual abuse.

Also . . .

In countries like Uzbekistan and Pakistan, children spray pesticides, commonly used in cotton production but which pose serious health and safety risks. EJF field research in October 2007 in India discovered children in the fields during the spraying season where plants were soaked with chemicals.

“Children were working on cotton plants that had been sprayed with chemicals only moments before, without any protection,” Duncan Copeland, EJF campaigner, says. “Most of the children we interviewed complained of nasty side-effects like fainting and sickness from exposure to pesticides, which is obviously a serious cause for concern in conventional and Bt cotton production.”

I find it really frustrating to walk into a store and to look at a label and find that it is ALMOST NEVER made in the U.S. or Canada, but almost always made in a third world country. Sometimes the manufacturer will try to fool you by printing, Designed in Canada, and then you find another tag that says it was made somewhere else overseas. (And yes, I realize that Made in U.S. or Canada does not necessarily mean that the cotton used to make these garments was not made under such abhorrent conditions - another reason to ask lots of questions!)

To be completely honest with you, up until a year or two ago, I never ever looked at the tag to see where the clothing I bought was made, it never entered my mind to consider it. But things for me have changed considerably.



Why do we import this stuff in the first place without strict guidelines that consider the human cost of our "cheap" goods? I can't help but think it resembles a form of slave labor so that we can buy lots of cheap stuff, much of which we don't really need in the first place. When I pick up a garment and I see that Made in X label, I can't help but think about the other end, and about the potential human cost it took to get in my hands.

But hey, the good news is we can make a difference collectively! What can we do? EJF suggests:

EJF is also calling upon consumers to demand accountability from their retailers to help put an end to child labour in the world’s cotton fields; to ask questions about where their cotton comes from, and under what conditions it was produced.

To read the full article and judge for yourself, you can follow the following link . . .

http://www.ejfoundation.org/page481.html

Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry

Something to think about this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend . . . We can vote for change with the ways we spend our money . . .


worker rests on a factory floor

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2007/115-9/focus.html

Eco Blog: Handmade Naturals

Thanks so much to Hyla for featuring me on her awesome green blog: Eco Blog. You can check out the interview she did with Handmade Naturals here!

Eco Blog: Handmade Naturals

The Lorax

This is a hoot! My sister-in-law is doing a course called the Human Act and the Environment and gave me a heads up on this story by Dr. Seuss! Published in 1971, and never more relevant! Check out the video version - it lasts about 25 minutes . . .

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6650219631867189375

It's been awhile . . .

Wow, life has been busy, it can be hard to keep up with a blog sometimes. But hey, always take time to pause for family, friends, cake and fresh berries! A few big milestones around here family-wise, a family reunion of sorts, and my little Etsy shop has been keeping me quite busy since re-opening in August.

A few pics to recap . . .


For my Dad, the avid fisherman and outdoorsman. I "painted" this cake using a hand-painted box by local artist Shawn O'Hagan for inspiration. (Check out her beautiful hand-knit shawls in her Etsy shop: www.islandsweet.etsy.com)




Fresh from the wild - helping to make the end of summer a little bit sweeter.














Another wacky "mama-made."

Creative Pause

A creative pause for me from posting on my Etsy shop all week, now my kids get their moment in the sun!