Last summer we started a project to develop a line of organic cotton sewing products that are colored with plants grown right here in North Carolina.
The Montagnard women I work with didn’t make clothing, they made slings. A sling is the way Montagnards carry their children, on their backs. A child lives in its sling till it is too heavy for the mother to carry. Your sling is your blanket, your coat, and sometimes your clothing. And when you die, you’re buried in it.
If I don’t want to see an oil rig next time I go to the beach, I need to stop creating a demand for oil.
Christmas is twenty four hours long, its square on the calendar is exactly the same size as every other square. No matter how much you write there, it won’t get any bigger.
This is the fourth year that we’ve been part of some wonderful holiday Alternative Markets. For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, Alternative Markets are usually held at churches and they are a way to do your holiday shopping and do a world of good at the same time.
The Fourth Sector can be generally defined by what it’s not. It’s not government, it’s not non-profit, it doesn’t measure itself by monetary gain. The Fourth Sector is an amalgam of all of us that look beyond profit margins to see what good we can do in the world just by the way we run our companies.
I recently read yet another article on an Eco Conscious web site touting the virtues of fabric made from bamboo. This article went so far as to be entitled “Why Bamboo Bedding is a credible alternative to Organic Cotton Bedding”. I was dismayed at the innacuracy of the article and downright offended by the headline. Here’s the truth.
The first order of business was to learn how the Montagnards dye miles of yarn without getting it into a huge tangle. Tuat and Jum tried to describe to me a frame that their husbands built for them out of bamboo
Just before the holidays, last year, Jum told me about her niece in Plei Grak, who wants to go to Con Tum to be trained as a teacher and medical worker so she can help her people to be healthier and get better educated. She only needed about $200 to go to school, but I didn’t have it.
We are now in the midst of Fiberactive’s first wedding extravaganza. Complete with organic laces and ruffles, yards and yards of organic cotton sateen, my first ever hats and veils and more time at the sewing machine than I’ve put in for years. I had forgotten how much fun it is to make dresses!
Babies & Children
Earth to Earth
Laissez Faire
Linens
Men
Quilts
Sewing
This & That
Vessels
Weddings
Women
Worship
