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Shadetree Custom Designs, LLC.

Sustainable and Organic

Why Organic Cotton?

 

Conventional cotton is produced using 25% of the world’s toxic pesticides and fertilizers.  The health of the farmers, workers, soil, plants and people are impacted.

 

                        Organic cotton :

·         Maintains and improves soil with crop rotation

·         Uses cover crops to fertilize and attract insects that prey on cotton crops

·         Uses frost to defoliate the cotton plant instead of spraying to defoliate cotton
·         Reduces contamination of water supply from runoff 

           

Both Harmony Art Organic Design and Organic Exchange have great facts sheets comparing conventional and organic cotton, please visit their websites for more in depth information

 

·         Harmony Art why organic page

  www.harmonyart.com

·         Organic Exchange’s look under publications for their Organic Cotton brochure

                                    www.organicexchange.org

 

Sustainable silk information by Kit Plumridge

 

Silk Dupioni is high quality, hand-loomed, manufactured from hand reared silk worms.  Double nested cocoons make up our weft with very fine warp yarns.  Our Mulberry Trees are organically fertilized with composted seeds from the Neem tree.


It was discovered in 1957 during a locust infestation in Sudan that the only trees that were not eaten were the Neem trees.  These trees have natural pest inhibitors and we use these to fertilize the mulberry trees and this systemically keeps the bugs away.  Once the silk is spun off the cocoon, the pupae are converted into compost for feeding the mulberry trees.

Silk is one of few yarns that are in themselves sustainable by nature. The life cycle of the cocoon shows this in a perfect way.  We are so pleased to be associated with a product of this nature for 25 years and now even more so during this green revolution!

The fabric is made on antique handlooms in a cottage industry environment.  As a result, support the weaving families directly. As the yarns are hand-spun, dyed and woven, we only manufacture an incredible 4 yards per day on a loom!

 

The dyes used on this particular type of silk are age-old dyes going back centuries and are made from naturally occurring organic material and minerals. They do not use modern chemical dyes as a sophisticated laboratory is required for modern dyeing

 

The raw fabric comes off the loom, flat folded and is shipped 100's of miles by train to get to our distribution center where it is rolled and packed in cellophane [made from recycled wood pulp] bags for protection.