Make your own eco-fabric
Home » Blog » Annabel McAleer » Make your own eco-fabricIn the current issue of Good, we list some great suppliers of stunning eco-friendly textiles in New Zealand. But what about designing your own organic fabric?
Above: Mod Green Pod textiles, available in NZ from Good Yarn and Vida Textiles, has a super-fun 'room creator' on its website, for hours of entertainment designing a room packed with with eco-friendly fabrics and wallpapers!
If you've been searching for the perfect fabric for an interiors or craft project, with the added complication of wanting an eco-friendly basecloth, look no further—if you're up for designing it yourself, that is.
Spoonflower is a website that lets you upload your own fabric design as a JPG, PNG, GIF or TIF. You can then choose to have your design printed onto organic cotton sateen, organic cotton knit, or bamboo-cotton rayon (plus some other, non-eco-friendly options).
The US-based website ships internationally, and the cost of shipping small amounts of fabric is reasonable: about $16 for up to 4.5 metres.
Here's a great little how-to guide by Aviary, which also makes Phoenix, an excellent free online image editor you can use to create your designs.
A gorgeous bold print by Anahatawear
If all that sounds like quite hard work, then check out the locally designed prints from Anahatawear, printed using Spoonflower's technology. Lesley Smith has been a designing since high school and has found a way to translate her wacky design aesthetic into exciting fabrics.
Lesley's fabric designs are split into five galleries: earth, air, water, fire and ether. Anahatawear fabrics are definitely not for the fainthearted—they are wildly colourful and bright, although there are some softer colours in the 'ether' gallery for the less adventurous. Swatches are available.
Although Lesley would love to have her printing done in New Zealand eventually, for now Spoonflower provides a great service for her new business. Delivery times vary between two and four weeks, but Lesley says it’s worth it for the quality of fabric as well as the quality of printing—especially since the inks used are eco-friendly as well.
Thu April 29, 2010 @ 12:15 PM
